Bite Sized Bits of Fic
by Abby Ebon
Summary: As might be guessed from the title, this is all my LJ commentfic stuff. Mostly crazy crossovers I didn't make up - but sure as heck wrote up!
1. Dr WhoEureka: Kissing Time Lords

Kissing (Time Lords)

Dr. Who/Eureka, 10/Nathan, "that's what you get for messing around with the space-time continuum"

Nathan Stark isn't dead, but he isn't really alive either. There is one place in all of time and alternate dimensions that he is safe and sane. He can still watch over them, his friends, his family – but he can never be seen, can never answer them though he hears. Sometimes he thinks its better that they don't know he's out here, with the Doctor, certainly it's some kind of twisted torture or cruel punishment, demanded of him by fate. It isn't that Stark doesn't like the Doctor; he's a fine…man? Well, he isn't human, whatever else the Doctor is, but he has morals and a life with a past that is so painfully real that Stark can see it written in the Doctor's features though he's never seen any of it, really, despite what the T.A.R.D.I.S. can do. Stark won't ask to see it, because what he sees is enough.

It took a while for the Doctor to get used to him, and even longer for Stark to get used to the Doctor, what he was, and where he was.

And that, however long Stark may live, he can never go back. He is Nathan Stark and he is immortal, but he isn't flesh and blood, he is energy and elemental. He's made of the stuff of the T.A.R.D.I.S., the Doctor says, and it's the only the Doctor and the T.A.R.D.I.S. and Nathan Stark who have that kind of energy, so it's natural that they are drawn together, as the Doctor said.

Nathan Stark wondered if it wasn't something else, something about the Doctor, because he can't deny that his curiosity to unravel a puzzle became a pull to make the pieces fit and feel. The Doctor takes him places, places that Nathan has never even dreamed of, and places of terrible beauty and horror pain, and how the Doctor can see so many places and never feel anything always itched at him, until the one day that Nathan realizes that the Doctor does feel, and it's as Nathan is dying (for real, this time, because if anything can kill a immortal energy-elemental that was once human, it's a matter-disrupter) that the Doctor kisses him, and he's never felt so alive and frail. He knows that the Doctor does this to save him; to give him the only kind of energy in the universe like his own, but it doesn't stop Nathan from kissing the Doctor back. It's messy and greedy but so very painfully alive, and Nathan is never more aware of the Doctor then he is right then.

When it stops, as it must stop, Nathan swears he hears the Doctor say something like "that's what you get for messing around with the space-time continuum" before going back to kissing him.


	2. Buffy : Angelus Is On Your Side

Angel(us) Is On Your Side

Buffy,_ Spike, warring emotions regarding Angel(us)_

Bloody embarrassing is what it is. Spike prides himself on being bad ass, a killer, and feared by slayers and their watchers, even vampires who could blink and all the time he's lived and killed in will have passed them by, give pause to cross him. There is only one thing Spike wants, and it is his sire, his Angelus.

In one night everything Spike had and hadn't known was what he wanted, was gone. Angelus had abandoned him, and Spike told himself that, well, that was well and good, because now he can prove he's worthy of Angelus without his sire's maker hovering about. He ignores the whimpering human heart who says he's been abandoned, and worse, he's forgotten and ashamed of.

It's Dru that made him what he is, and he clings to her, because she is his maker, yet it was Angelus that made her, tormented her in ways that Spike can only sooth Dru out of her nightmares of. Surely, because of that torture, that care that Angelus lavished on Dru for years, he'll come back for his childe, and Spike will be there, at her side – and, at least, Angelus might be grateful for his watching over Dru, might tolerate Spike about and around him for it.

Spike longs for that day as much as he fears it, because there is always the lingering yammering human in him that says that Angelus doesn't feel anything for him, that he'd sooner get staked then thanked. But, Spike is a pathetic brute, and he wants that too, wants Angelus so badly that he's willing to risk his undead life for Angelus to just come back and let Spike stand beside him.

If Angelus comes back, Spike knows, things will be just the same – it's what he hopes. He thinks and worries though, that it won't. What if the gypsy curse did more then sever the human from the vampire…that is bad enough, but every vampire needs a little bit of that human who they used to be to keep them sane.

When his legs are broke and Angelus is raving about ending the world, killing all the humans, its suicide. Spike had always hated Angel… that human half of Angelus who found Spike so revolting that he'd run from Spike and the family, ashamed and filled with self loathing. It's sickening then, when Spike realizes he has to kill Angel – Angelus – to save the world, but his sire's maker, his sire in heart, is sick, insane, and maybe it's not having the blood he's craved for centuries, or being souled and human, that's done it, but it's done, and Spike has to do it. Has to end it, he has to kill Angelus to save the world, and he hates Buffy for that, for killing Angelus and as good as sending him to hell.

So when he finds out that Angel is back, Spike knows he'll eventually follow, because Angel is his sire and isn't dead though Spike as good as killed him, and Spike goes, following after, knowing he wants that justice, that redemption – and only Angel can give it to him by showing that in Angel there is a bit of Angelus, just as Spike had seen that bit of Angel in Angelus.

The soul though, that was mostly an accident. Though Angel looks at him with understanding, Spike knows that Angelus is laughing at him on the other side of those dark eyes, and underneath it all, his sire is a little bit amused (with him) and proud (of him), and wars with himself daily just as Spike, his self-declared childe, does.

Spike doesn't mind a bit, in the end, because he's got what he wanted, and Angel is standing at his side and paying attention to him again. The rest of the world is at war.


	3. XMenStar Trek : Once A Hero

Once A Hero

X-Men/Star Wars*, AU, Cyclops, he was in the middle of a war and he didn't even know how he got there!

*Abby Ebon fails as this is X-Men/Star Trek.

Somewhere along the way, things went wrong. Lilandra had, in an effort of peace between the Shi'ar Empire and X-Men had asked Scott and Jean Grey to accompany them in uncovering the nature of an anomaly. The scientist in Jean hadn't been able to say no, let alone risk the possibility of adding insult to injury, so Scott had gone along with her. Now, Jean was no where he could find her (and Scott had always, always felt her presence within his mind though she never took when he had offered to share of his mind with her freely) the Shi'ar weren't answering any communication he tried, and Scott had the sinking feeling he was very, very lost.

And then things went insane. Scott was there as, out of thunder and lightning, something that looked both foreign and familiar peered out of a storm in space. Then ships come from nothing in a blink of light, over and over, and there were names on those ships, Scott read them, saw with his own eyes that they were from Earth, because he recognized the letters and designs and though it was impossible it was somehow happening. Scott couldn't breathe around the possibilities, around the awe and amazement he felt, and then it went to hell.

That fragile and alien ship plowed into the other vessels with beams of red light like teeth and claws, ripping into what had looked solid and reassuring as if they were paper, and Scott learned one important lesson that day, as he listened to those ships – filled with people – as they fought and screamed and begged, that the appearance of what was alien was deceiving. He'd never trust them again as he had been willing to.

Scott shook and cried, seeing those ships and people murdered, and then there was another ship – and he thought he was going to see it all over again (again and again and when would it ever stop?) – but, no, the alien ship did nothing, but Scott picked up the communication because something's never changed and the Shi'ar were good scientists and damn good explorers for a reason.

So, Scott learned that murderers name – "Nero", he was looking for a Vulcan named Spock, and had found him (but not him, this one was too young?) on the ship called Enterprise. And maybe that was enough for now, because Scott was determined that he would die before he let Nero get what he wanted. Scott saw the alien ship launch something into the planet's atmosphere, dangling there – and when it started up he saw it for what it was under all that alien disguise (because he never wanted to be so fooled again), and maybe in space no one should be able to hear you scream, but Scott had lived and loved a telepath, and when a world cried out, Scott heard it and it broke his heart to hear.

So he risked it, and, yes, maybe he was acting the part of a hero, but it was the right thing to do, taking his ship – barely a dot in the eye compared to what Nero and the Enterprise were, and he hung there beside where the disk became the drilling of a beam, and he took off the glasses that gave him the name of Cyclops and it was enough – more then enough – to save a planet, and those people below, they somehow knew (or so he felt) that they recognized him, what he had done – it was enough. It didn't end this war that wasn't his, but it was a start in the right direction. He closed his eyes and put the glasses on, and it was too late to reconsider when he saw his hand dissolving with white lights, Scott thought he was dying, but he was alive and breathing and people were looking at him, with curiosity, with awe, and yes (he wasn't imagining things) – some of them had pointed ears, and beneath the calm in them was something terrifying, because they were the voices of the world he had saved, and they felt things too deeply for him to name. It was war, he felt and heard, but it was love too – for him, and it was a thin line between the two.


	4. EurekaIron Man : Something Like Genius

Something Like Genius

Eureka/ Iron Man (movie), Nathan Stark/Tony Stark, (AC: genius)

When the famous Iron Man crashes lands right in the middle of Eureka, everyone has any number of different reactions. Nathan knows this, because he watches and catalogs them. Jack is amused and yet annoyed, amused because Tony Stark has Nathan's last name and yet Jack's same sense of humor – it's almost sickening, how alike they are.

If Jack had been a genius, Nathan never gave too much thought to how he'd turn out, but now he does know, because Tony and Jack are too alike for Nathan to feel very comfortable comparing. Yet, Jack is also annoyed because this is his town, and Tony sort of just hurt Eureka, but Jack will get over it about the same time as when there is no more paperwork.

Jo is vexed because the Iron Man suit is a weapon and it handles better then anything she'll ever touch, because Tony is a possessive asshole, apparently.

Allison is pleased at for the first time having the military and General Mansfield at her bidding as they strive to find a balance between getting back Tony Stark as a one man army, and trying not to piss off one of the people who could offer Tony all the toys in the town.

Zoe is a little bit love struck, but Tony was warned off by Jack, who is annoyingly one of the only people Tony actually listens to, because, after all, Tony is Jack's friend. Somehow they've known each other for longer then just the crash landing, that much becomes obvious, and when Nathan hears Jim Taggart and Jo discussing the 'wild party' that Tony apparently had met Jack at back in the day, he can't ignore the sick feeling in his gut or dismiss it as Vincent's cooking. It'd hurt his (Vincent's) feelings, and Nathan does not want to be exiled until he's properly apologized. He'd been there and done that and unlike Jack, actually learned from it.

Zane Donovan has all but met his hero, and star stuck awe doesn't even start to cover all the bases.

Nathan knows how they all feel about Tony, but how Nathan himself feels about the millionaire genius is a mix of it all, incomparable. It seems to him that they are two sides of the same coin, yet drawn together into one whole by a magnetic force.

Tony kisses him, and for all his cataloging and comparing, Nathan can't think of a word for what he feels. Maybe it's love, or something like genius.


	5. Boondock Saints : Saint's Song

Saint's Song

Boondock Saints, Connor/Murphy, God Save Ireland

*I would really suggest hearing this song!*

When they were but babe's, their mama had sung to them 'God Save Ireland' as a lullaby. When she died, they heard it still, but it seemed a disgrace to her memory to hear it in bars on St. Patty's day. When it was sung there, Murphy would rise and stagger out, and Connor could only shrug and follow. He'd given up on making up excuses, and really – there was no need for one.

Every night of St. Patty's when they tried to earn a living and survive Murphy would kiss him sweetly, and let him have his way so the memories would be dim and faded things.

It was only later, years and years later, while working the farm and land in Ireland that Murphy would sing it with their Da, on a quite night when the shadows were long and the fire flickering, with such longing and yearning in his voice that Connor feared for him. It'd been Connor who'd said that it was better they lived and hid then died Saints or Sinners.

It touched too close to Connor, and his thoughts were dark those days with memories. Connor, later that night, would cry and prey that they wouldn't turn out to be the noble Three upon the gallows tree. Yet the song seemed a taunt – a mirror and haunt in their blood and every act. As a part of them as their family prayer, he knew that if the time came, they'd prove just a self sacrificing as the song had ended.

He couldn't live without Murphy, and Da - he never wanted to loose after having lost him once. Yet he could no more ignore the priest, shot in cold blood, brains blown out and cheeks a ruin and coins upon his eyes – the cry that the Saints had done that terrible thing, then he could have ignored the lullaby his mother had once sung, to sooth him and Murphy to sleep.

He vowed something as they got on a ship going over the sea, they wouldn't be forgotten, they would not forgive, but they would have freedom.


	6. Master And Commander : Breath

Breath

Master And Commander, Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin, "And what manner of sea creature is that, doctor?"

"And what manner of sea creature is that, doctor?" says Jack, and at first Stephen thinks he is merely being teased good-naturedly but unfairly, for he sees nothing at the helm of the ship, where Jack has a hand on the great wheel that stirs their lives on the sea. At his look, Jack sighs softly, shaking his head as he makes a gesture to the land they never stray far from. A fin splits the air and dives within the sea again, and Stephan is breathless and eager for a closer look.

"Some member of the dolphin family, perhaps…?" Stephan can not help guessing, saying it aloud so that Jack would know his thoughts. The dorsal breaks again the surface of the sea, this time sending up a spray that stirs the early morning air. A great body is glimpsed rising to the surface then with a breath is gone again.

Mist clings to the ship and land, and they can not see very far but Stephan is glad to see this. It occurs to him that Jack has either been following this fellow so Stephan could see him, or the beast has been following them. It is more likely that Jack would do such a thing then sea beast, for Stephan is not the early riser that Jack is, but Jack knows his comings and goings well, so this is likely one of Jack's plans, this sight and guess.

"Nah, I think it more like a whale." Again the fin breaks the gap of sea and sky, black as pitch. It climbs higher into the sky, it seems, and a great white eye peers up at them from the mist. Stephan's breath catches in delight, for this is a rare find, a whale of rare origin, it is confused with a dolphin – sometimes – for it is not the great size the whale ships hunt for.

"Thank you." Stephan breaths to creature and Jack, but it is Jack who smiles and takes his hand, tangling their fingers briefly in promise, letting their hands touch until the sun burns away the mist and the crew stirs from the ship's depths.


	7. Alex Rider : Between

Between

Alex Rider, Yassen/Alex/Wolf, sharing is caring

Alex shivers, and Wolf moves in closer to offer warmth and comfort, yet a chilling hand rests suddenly on his shoulder, and it stills him – with a raised brow he looks over to Yassen (who shares Alex's bed, not his) who frowns and shakes his head. Wolf grits his teeth, grinding them, because Alex is his too, and damned if Yassen is going to be an ass and stop him from keeping Alex warm. He might as well, it's one of the few things that Wolf does that Yassen can't do better.

They both, sickeningly, are around the same age – almost thirty, and far too damn old to be having a teenager (mind, he was eighteen two months ago) in either of their beds. Yet it was Alex who had pursued them, seduced them, and – almost mockingly – bedded them, together.

So now, both Wolf and Yassen were stuck together, though they couldn't really stand each other without Alex playing go-between. Still, neither Wolf nor Yassen could deny they felt something for each other – and Alex, so when Wolf smiled in a way that showed his gritted teeth, Yassen matched him movement for movement as Wolf moved to lay on one side and Yassen on the other. Sharing Alex, after all, was caring for Alex, who went both ways, thus they were caring for each other in a round about way – neither liked it, but they would learn to share to care for Alex who would die without the both of them.


	8. Greek Mythology : Wasted On Hermes

Wasted (On Hermes)

Greek mythology, Hermes/Dionysus, "Man, I am _so_ wasted."

"Man, I am _so_ wasted." Dionysus whimpers against the skin of Hermes. He curls closer, by all appearances; he is a child, with curling brown hair hanging down to his shoulders and the chubby fat of childhood clinging to an otherwise lithe and promising body.

Hermes closes his eyes and wonders what Dionysus sees in him, these sorts of affairs never end happily, Hermes is black haired, it falls in waves and ringlets, and he long ago gave up shaving his jaw, so there is a beard, but Dionysus seems to enjoy it and never says it tickles. Their skin is the same, and in this sort of world that does not believe in gods, none would ever guess their father is one and the same.

"Why do you do this to me?" Hermes asks softly, for it is Dionysus with a honeyed tongue and dancing eyes that teases and seduces – Hermes is the traveler, he knows all the roads he could run, all the paths of heaven and earth and what lay beneath are open to him. He could run – and sometimes he thinks he is, always – but right now he does not move. Dionysus would only catch him again, snare him and perhaps never let him flee.

"Because it is fun, Hermes, do you not think so?" Dionysus then purrs, wicked darkness lurking in his violet gaze, and Hermes is always wary, for his partner is as swiftly changing and dangerous as his wine.

Immortality does not often grant sanity, even Hermes falls prey to his own quirks, his keen eyes alert for some shining bobble or being to steal away. Hermes swallows his guilt, and when Dionysus's kisses taste of wine, he does not protest his godhood being so tainted.

Hermes will never say that he likes the taste, though it is all too true – Dionysus may be god of wildness and the vine, and it is his nature to corrupt, to change, to nourish, but it is Hermes who is god of herds, trade, thieves and athletes, Dionysus is like the world and Hermes is like those touched with wanderlust for a world unending. This is as wrong as it is right, and Hermes only preys it never ends.


	9. Greek Mythology: It Ends In Light

It Ends In Light

Greek Mythology, Apollo/Pan, always alone

*"Apollo" means (destroy), "Pan" is (all)*

Light touches Pan's nose, and he wrinkles it in distaste, for the wilderness might harbor dark and secrets, but eventually night must end and day begin. It is the day that Pan loathes, once he was a god – but now he is more, and less, he is a Pan who dies, and his voice may still shill to raise the fear of unknown and wild into the hearts of mortal or divine, but it is not his gift, for every time he dies, he lives again and takes a little bit of the world's wildness away. It is killing him, the slow dying of the wild places - he thinks he'd rather be dead then see it all going away so painfully slow – yet he never crosses the Styx, never walks with cloven hooves into the depths of the world he is beloved of. He is meant for light and earth and wildness, not the dark he so desires.

Pan sighs, looks up to the sky, and knows he is watched. He has tried to hide from the light and its source, but now he knows he has failed. Prone now beside him is Apollo, who watches him, wide eyed and trembling, his golden skin flushed with desire and sweat as he breathes in shakily.

"It is you, you live." Apollo whispers the words in the silence of the morning, Pan only waits, and his curving horns are ivory white in the light. Pan knew that as a boy, Apollo had followed him, had all but loved him, still some of that awe and reverence swam in his eyes. Pan loathes seeing it, it hurts to remember and to know he is still remembered in this world where the wilds are dying.

"How do you live, my sister is dead, Artemis of the Hunt, of the Wilds, is dead, yet you…you live…" Apollo confesses, and Pan had suspected it – had feared it, that with his being what he was now – not god or mortal, but the divine all; would kill those he had held dear and loved.

"Are the nymphs all dead, then?" Pan asks, because he must know that if nothing else, he remembers the joys of chasing them. Apollo does not speak, and it is answer enough, Pan lowers his eyes for he is no match for the loveliness of Apollo, with his furred limbs of a goat, yet is Apollo who kisses him, soothing.

"Together, we are not alone, though from others we always must be…" Apollo whisperers feverishly against his lips, and Pan understands how Apollo has survived, he is of the sun and it's healing light, yet he is also of the arts and their music, and Apollo has divided himself to remain, to stay behind at Pan's side. Pan closes his eyes, awash in light and heat, and knows he must put Apollo back together, for they are alone, and there is no one else save themselves who may save them.


	10. Samurai Champloo : Stars and Surface

Stars and Surface

Samurai Champloo, Jin/Mugen, modern!au they are Fuu's bodyguards

Jin scans the room – his gaze settling on nothing, yet roving for a threat - his skin feels as if it's itchy, and he just wants Fuu out of here, but he lets nothing of his feelings seep to the surface. Of so he thinks, because there is a hand on his shoulder and Jin flinches for he had not noticed someone approaching from behind him – Fuu takes the seat against the wall, and there is no other place for him that would be seemly, save on the other side of her, his back to the room at large but his eye on the kitchen and the only public way out.

"Easy samurai…." Mugen purrs, and warm breath tingles the skin of his neck, and it's as if Jin has been given permission to breath, to relax, simply because of the reckless Mugen who thirsts for his blood, his death, yet is noble in his own right, holding his promises as sacred as Jin.

Mugen pays no mind to proper sitting, plopping right down beside Fuu and making room for himself at her side. Fuu only laughs at his outrageous behavior which is his norm, and the eager reporters flash their cameras and blab out questions; they expect Fuu to hear everyone of them, Fuu might not – but Jin hears a few that catch his ear.

"Miss Fuu, how successful do you feel your latest film will be?" It's in the standard range, but Jin lowers his eyes so they will not see his ire at how pressured Fuu must feel every time someone feels they must bring it up – the film failing or succeeding is not on Fuu's shoulders alone, though the reporters are certainly convinced of it – that is why Fuu needs them, she has the tendency to find trouble and the amount she has been kidnapped has been significantly reduced since Mugen and Jin had joined at her side in traveling with her tours.

"Fuu, the people need to know! Are you and Mugen in a relationship? He certainly is very friendly with you!" Jin's fingers tighten around his fork, and he wants to hiss, because Mugen is his – his partner, his lover, and they only follow Fuu because she is their cover, and as she is how they met in the first place – their friend.

"Fuu! Are your bodyguards your lovers?" Jin's lip twists, because Mugen is not overly friendly with anyone – he bitches and moans with them, even, but he is touch starved too – he touches Fuu anytime in public, not giving a damn, but when it's just Jin and him following after Fuu, Mugen's fingers reach to touch his, and they brush shoulders and arms as much as Jin allows, for Jin loathes touch, for it sends him on edge and into distraction quickest, there is no other's touch that he is more sensitive and attuned to wanting then Mugen.

Still, they are close to –if not the truth, a truth- and he does not like it. Jin only has to look at them for them to settle, Mugen snickers his open amusement at their stillness with his partner's glance, his arm slinging around the starlets shoulder at his side, he whispers something the reporters won't hear, but Jin will.

"We need to get out of here. I shouldn't have left Jin alone." Jin lowers his eyes and presses his lips into a narrow line, he should not be so obvious to anyone, but somehow only Mugen sees through his mask and it does not bother him as much as it should. Mugen was raised on the streets among the most criminal of people – prostitutes, thieves, murderers, and worse, and only his will to live and survive is all that has kept him alive until now, Jin has never been more grateful for that – without Mugen he would be alone, friendless, and without his lover.

Jin was raised without love of family or friends, for all that he was taught skills and excelled in them, and it was not enough to make him a whole person without Mugen. Fuu nods, smiling, as if Mugen has said something kind and romantic to her, which, in a way, Jin supposes Mugen has – though his words are for Jin. Not even Jin knows Mugen the way Fuu does, for it was Fuu who saved Mugen from the streets long before Jin took this job beside Mugen, just to be with him when Jin had been sure –like these people and their papers - that Mugen was her lover.

"The movie will be seen by the people who will decide if it is of worth, of course, and Mugen means much to me, having once saved me from kidnappers in want of a ransom they never got thanks to him – he is the white knight he pretends not to be, and I will always be in his debt – and no proper girl kisses and tells, ladies and gentlemen!" It is enough of an answer to keep the rumor mills going and not enough of an answer that Fuu will still be seen as she always has been. She thanks them for joining her in a meal, pays for it all - and then leaves with Mugen and Jin trailing after, and it is only when they are in the limo with tinted windows that Mugen is in Jin's lap and kissing him, soothing his nerves in the only way that Mugen can.

What the reporters do not know is that Mugen wrote Sunflower Samurai, the movie Fuu co-stars in, it's a movie about two male lovers traveling in the Edo Era with a girl searching for her father – Jin thinks that Mugen can be too obvious, but no one else save Fuu even suspects.


	11. Samurai Champloo : Smooth and Scarred

Smooth and Scarred

Samurai Champloo, Mugen/Jin, skin

Mugen settles down beside him, hands upon him, eyes skimming over his skin. Jin likes it, likes this attention that only Mugen can give him. This man is his friend, his companion and would be killer. Jin does not know that one day it might be that Mugen will kill him, for he does not know that Mugen thinks of him as a friend.

"What do you see?" Jin asks his dark eyes on Mugen whose tawny skin is scarred and sun kissed gold. Jin knows he is smooth and white like porcelain art, all his life he has taught himself to survive by the swords he wares, yet for all the hurts he might have suffered he has always had access to the better medical herbs to ease his hurts and speed his healing.

Mugen's skin gives him character, the scars like the art of his life, a pattern one can trace and know that Mugen has lived a hard life and survived what most would die before facing. Mugen had no choice in it; he was born on an island of criminals yet had survived and learned to read and write, had endured and arisen out of the sea with his own set of morals, because Jin knew Mugen had them, though he called them instincts – and only sometimes worked around them to achieve a better ending.

"Skin, yours and mine." Mugen lazily kissed their joined hands, wet mouth and hot tongue making Jin's breath catch, because Mugen never looked away from his eyes as he tormented Jin's skin.


	12. SupermanBatman : Saving Superman

Saving Superman

Superman Returns/Batman Begins (TDK), Clark/Bruce, the aftermath of kryptonite exposure (any color)

Bruce never wants to see Clark so helpless again. He'd watched as Superman had fallen to Earth from the sky, it was like watching the beginning of his life and knowing that, this time, as he fell – it would be to his death. Earth and its people are a special kind of poison for Clark, no matter that he comes from a race that once ruled the galaxy, no matter that they died out rather then abandon a dying planet. They were powerful and loyal and when they are good they are pure and unmarked, and when they go bad, they know all the ways to hurt.

Yet he refuses to let Clark rest, to let him die, and its Bruce who's gotten Clark tucked away in one of the most remote and high-tech hospitals, and it's discrete and knows how to keep secrets. Yet, Bruce knows when Lois Lane visits, her little boy Jason following along beside her.

Bruce pays a visit that night, the soonest he can get away without suspicion leading to him. Clark is pale and sickly looking, his skin is tinged green and Bruce curses that they can't get all of that green dust out, slivers of it are everywhere, under his nails, his fingers, his whole body has the dust soaked into it, and Bruce? Bruce can do nothing. He sits at the edge of the bed and holds a human weak hand, and preys and tells Clark to fight this off, to get over it and live. He has Lois waiting for him, a little boy…and…and Bruce.

It's when Bruce cries, tears running down his face and dripping onto that too still hand that Clark stirs, blurry eyes opening as that hand reaches to caress his check and lip, and when Bruce kisses Clark on the lips he knows that it isn't just 'all better', but it will be –one day - because Superman lives.


	13. SupermanBatman : Luxury of Love

Luxury of Love

Superman Returns/Batman Begins, Clark/Lois/Bruce, luxury

Bruce has lived in luxury his whole life, and he never knew the true meaning of the word. It had started with an unknown reporter insisting on an interview from a well known news station. He'd thought nothing of it at the time, only some news hound trying to make a name, surely. Bruce ought to have known better, for that had been his first sign that Lois was on his trail, determined at burning away all obstacles that got in the way of her and her objective. She was, to say the least, stubborn. Bruce had known, after the third week in a row of day-to-day calls that she was not giving up, so he might as well do so. Bruce had told her she had five minutes to make the interview worthy of his attention, in his own home, and she'd said words he'd never forget.

"Patience is a virtue, Batman." Lois hadn't really wanted an interview, it turned out, and neither did she want to blackmail a multi-millionaire. She wanted his help, his, not the Batman, but Bruce. Superman had had a child, and that child was sickly, starving. Jason was small and frail, and it was hard to think that he could be the child of Superman or Lois, but he was, and he needed Bruce in a way that Bruce had never thought anyone would. Jason needed constant one-on-one care, and it seemed the logical move to have him moved in with Bruce, and where Jason went Lois was sure to follow.

News and media raved about it for weeks. Bruce decided to go along with it, to play that Lois Lane was all but his wife, to stop being 'the playboy' for the public, because it could not be doubted that Lois would keep his secret of where he went during the night. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being play – if it ever was only playing to start with – and he couldn't imagine a life without Lois and Jason in it. All of it underlined by the mystery of Superman, because it didn't matter that Jason was his son, Lois gave him no name, no identity to work with. Bruce would not pry only for his own curiosity, not about his family, and Superman gone – perhaps forever – was not enough of a threat to risk Lois's fury.

"He's back, Bruce - Superman." Bruce knew then the fear that came with a simple phone call. He flew to Lois as fast as a human might, and it didn't matter that Lois had never told him Superman's name, because upon entering the Daily Planet like he owned it (which, of course, he did – or some part of it) he knew Superman. Bruce put his bravo to use, slinging an arm over Lois and smiling all the while into the face of Superman, who could break steel with a flick of his finger.

Clark Kent was not what he expected. The man who was Superman flushed, looking away and stuttering a "sorry" to them while fleeing. Lois gave Bruce a look like he'd kicked a puppy, and he realized that despite his wealth and power, Lois was still a little bit in love with Clark Kent the small town farmer raised man who happened to be Superman. So, Bruce did the best he could - and invited Clark over for supper.

It was only natural that Clark never went home, after. It was all that the papers talked about for weeks, and when there was a three-way marriage (because if it could be done, Bruce would have it done, even if it'd never been done before) between Bruce Wayne and Lois Lane and Clark Kent, the papers years afterwards would still speculate to certain individuals sexual prowess in bed (Bruce didn't mind that Clack had him beat, after all, he was Superman, and never left either Bruce or Lois wanting) why they still worked so together well yet didn't retire at ridiculously young ages (because Bruce had his business, and Lois would go insane no matter how much she loved them if she didn't have the Daily Planet which Bruce had given her for her birthday present, and Clark, while Superman, still needed time to be who he was) and what held them together.

The answer, as Bruce would always give into the blinding blinks of cameras with a smile, was the luxury of love.


	14. FireflyPOTC: Sky to Sea

Sky to Sea

Firefly/POTC, Mal/Jack, "what a ship really is...is freedom"

It's a lesson Mal can never forget, what Captain Jack Sparrow taught him. Mal had grown up on a world of eccentrics, and beside him had stood Jack. They were orphans on a world that wanted none. A world that pretended to be Earth, back when Earth was brand new and men were arrogant. Jack had stayed behind on that world that called itself Earth.

Mal had gone ahead, gotten off the world, had gotten in a war he didn't start and didn't want to see finished – not if it meant going back. Mal needn't have worried, because it was hard enough getting off the battlefield let alone getting beaten soldiers back to their home worlds. Mal still had no where to go, and he didn't know if Zoe followed him – or he followed her, yet they found the firefly-class ship, Serenity, together. Mal remembered the lesson whispered to him under the stars, with his bare skin on the sand and rum in his hands. Dark fingers had traced the patterns of stars onto his skin, and dark eyes had burned for him, and lips had whispered in his ear.

"I will be Captain Jack Sparrow, Mal, just you wait and see – because, what a ship really is….is freedom." Longing and desire had tugged low in his belly, and they called it spacers wonder and sea lust, that wanting and need for exploring and seeing and touching with your own hands what you had only heard of before. Rough lips had made him crave what he could not name, and whiskered cheeks had soothed what those words had stirred up in him, for a time.

Mal had space and Serenity, and Jack had the sea and his Black Pearl, and a pirate ship was the only sort that might run into Mal again, they both knew, and so when they met on that mocking mirror of Earth once more, neither were really very surprised.


	15. Angel : A Book Lover's Love

A Book Lover's Love

Angel, Wes/Spike, Spike must help Wes with research - Wes is surprised that Spike enjoys reading_  
_

Wes expects Spike to moan and mumble and mutter and curse, instead, Spike slides silently to the bookcase, settles his hand on the curve of a spine, and plops onto the floor. It takes a moment for Wes to reason out that Spike isn't playing a game with him, where he'll pounce and start kissing - that he's not pretending to enjoy himself, that he really is doing what Wes sees, what he was asked. Wes finds himself falling a little bit more in love.


	16. Firefly: What A Girl Wants

What A Girl Wants_  
_

_Firefly, Female!Mal/Inara, Mal finds words come easier as a woman_

It's her ship, damn-it, and there is only so much unresolved sexual tension a girl can take. Always, Mal is aware of those dark eyes and pouting lips watching her anytime Mal has her attention elsewhere – and that is just plain damned unhealthy in a 'can get you killed' way, having a captain of a star ship so distracted; Zoe won't do a thing about it, a smile dancing on her lips that tells Mal that this is her problem, because Zoe finds it too damn funny for words. Mal resolved to turn the tables, just a bit, so when Inara is passing her by, a brush of soft cloth and spicy cinnamon scent, always a tease, Mal presses soft curves and a dancer's body to her own sharp angles and lean muscles, she puts her lips to Inara's ear and asks teasingly; "Do you want me?" and all the answer she needs is Inara's breath catching sweetly.


	17. Alex Rider : Spy Games

Spy Games

Alex Rider, Alex, Ian played the double agent instead of John and Alex finds out about his father's career in a different way

"This boy survived the Gentleman?" John Crawley asked of Smithers, his tone a bit stifling. The flowers for the funeral of John and Alex Rider had already arrived to the desk of Alan Blunt, MI6 being the only family that Rider's seemed to have in common. It was a bit of a family curse, Crawley had thought.

Alex, however, was not dead. Proof of this lay on the white sheets of a chemically cleaned dark room, burnt bare skin under bandages, the boy looked like a mummy. He was alive, but the scar on his back would leave the imprint of flames, in mimicry of wings.

"Do not sound so upset, he is a boy, yes, but he is a brilliant one. At only ten he had wanted to find out more about Ian, in fact, so set his mind was, so determined – he nearly succeeded in hacking his way into MI6 systems, if I hadn't….distracted him, I fully believe he would have succeeded." Smithers sounded almost as if he'd wished to change things, to have let Alex have the victory, if only so he would have had a hint then to what was coming. Now, he was an orphan, John dead with the house having been blown up, his only uncle long buried, and his mother having died in a plane bomb –targeted at the only brother of Ian who had a family to loose, that would have taken Alex and his father if not for Alex having had an ear infection and John being unwilling to leave Alex, so staying behind and surviving.

John had not been the same with Ian dying, and his wife's death had all but killed him, living a half life for his son's sake, Yassen had walked into the Riders lives. He was a boy assassin who said that he owed it to Ian to take care of the babe that Ian had considered like his own son; for all that Alex was John's. John had not turned such an offer aside, and had allowed the teenager to stay – to say Alex had a bond was to understate things. As it was, Yassen thought Alex dead, and was even now chasing after the heels of the Gentleman for his vengeance.

He might even succeed, MI6 was unsure if the boy was crazy or as skilled as he played at being. Ian had certainly taught him things, and the then fourteen year old had kept in practice, dragging Alex about the world while John worked and paid for their keep – and John himself had certainly raised the two with skills they may not even realized they even now possessed. If Alex's skills mirrored Yassen's, then they might get a double deal for the fourteen year old Alex, and his twenty eight year old guardian. If Yassen came back alive – and he surely would come back if he lived, if only to see Alex's grave, which was being dug and filled, the marker between of the graves of John and Helen, and Ian and Ash. Perhaps now Alex might understand the engraved imagery, the hunters telescope, the medical cross, the reaper, and the ring of thorns – Alex's would be a mimic of his scars, angel wings.

"Anyone who has a claim on him is dead, they can't protect him from the grave – Yassen, even if he is the boy's legal guardian now, thinks he is dead - what do you think that Alan Blunt will do?" Smithers asks, though the answer to the question goes between them unspoken, they are both fond of this Rider, having decided to give him the best odds they can. Loyalty to new ties does not yet feel like a break from the old ones.


	18. Bones: Wasted Breath

Prompt: Bones, Sweets/(Bones), "Again I Go Unnoticed" (Dashboard Confessional)

Jul. 26th, 2010 at 6:50 AM

Prompt: Bones, Sweets/(Bones), "Again I Go Unnoticed" (Dashboard Confessional)

_Yes, I listened to the song, I promised to do it if I was going to write a song-inspired prompt_…

**Wasted Breath **

Sweets is sitting, his knees tucked under his chin, and he hasn't moved since Booth set eyes on him. Booth closes his eyes and exhales, the smell of sickness seeping into the chemical cleaners of a hospital. For the rest of his life, he knows it'll be the smell he'll think of when he thinks what he might – may still – have lost. Bones.

Booth wants to ask Sweets a lot of things; _how did it happen? What were you doing –talking about – that would have had her be so distracted? _

Bones was driving, that's all they had said. Booth wants to blame Sweets, hate him for screwing up his life – loath him for maybe killing Bones all on his own when Booth has worked hard to keep his partner alive and breathing even after the things – people, criminals – they go after.

Booth takes a breath, and says nothing.


	19. Doctor Who : Ridiculous

**Ridiculous **

Doctor Who, Ten/any Companion "Here kitty, kitty"

The Doctor has, in fact, seen _Homeward Bound_, and knows very well that this looks something like the scene where the fat guard is going "Here, kitty kitty kitty kitty.", and the cat replies something in kind as "Not on your life, chubby." and then goes on to say "No, dummy dummy dummy dummy." at further "Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty. Here, kitty kitty kitty." prompting. Thanks be to a certain –different - companion that will certainly remain nameless. Still, facts as they are, prized breeding boy-bits cats are rare on Bastet Prime, and the Doctor rather likes his companions sane, and after all they have been through, the Doctor at the end of the day is rather fond of his companion-turned-talking-cat. In fact, although the Doctor promised to fix him (though certainly not in that way) the Doctor has quite forgotten what the time-traveling looked like as a human. Quite boring, the Doctor imagines.

Said companion is now hissing at him, little white teeth gleaming, somehow he's gotten tucked underneath the TARDIS and, no, not even the Doctor is going to go about guessing how right now. TARDIS, for various reasons, seems to have turned against him for a cat. Who isn't a cat, of course, but a man named Martin, or Marvin, or Matt, (perhaps Jack?) and really the things the Doctor is doing have gotten down right undignified. So the Doctor is sick of pampering, and pleading, and gets off his hands and knees, glaring down underneath the TARDIS and deciding to have the last word that doesn't really matter when the cat is sulking about being, well, a cat.

"They do terrible things to cats here, pampering, indoor retreats, jungle gym rooms, and sand boxes cleaned daily, I know it all sounds rather nice, and maybe it is, but it isn't for you, you like exploring, don't you? I thought so. More street cat then house cat, I would have said, but, really, if you would prefer me to leave you here, if you're happy…" The Doctor turns to go into the TARDIS, and with the blue door shut in his face he really isn't sure the TARDIS is going to let him go in, further, the Doctor doesn't really want to leave, he is a little heart broken about this whole misunderstanding that the cat got into it's head that the Doctor was turning him into a pet, or something, and really the mention of breeding the rare cat with such-and-such female wasn't meant to be overheard. So, the Doctor can understand, really, but maybe he can't get the cat turned back into a man, and maybe what's-his-name is better off here, after all. When with a soft mewor-hiss the little bundle of red and black tiger streaks into the cat-door, that wasn't there before, yet one day just was - the Doctor smirks a little triumphantly and ignores the sullen gold eyes watching him.

He'll get this put right, after all – of course….eventually.


	20. Star Wars : Sith Web

Sith Web

Star Wars, Anakin, Sith

He didn't want to be one, a sith. In the end, it was force at work, the force that was love and hate, and he was caught in its web, yet its master in the same breath. It was meant to be, they said.


	21. SG1 : Alien Eyes

Alien Eyes

SG-1, Jack/Daniel, strange writings on the wall

Jack can only watch, because Daniel finally got in the way of Jack's brain and an Ancient device. Scrawled on the walls are words and numbers and things that will take years to unravel, Jack does the only thing he can, he says Daniel's name, touches his shoulder and waits. Daniel looks at him and smiles brilliant and familiar, but Jack shudders, because there is nothing in those eyes but the alien writing on the wall.


	22. Hellsing : Vampire's Lips

Vampire's Lips

Hellsing, Integra/Girlycard, The longest night

She has his red eyes, in her little black dress, Integra can almost forget. Fingers trail the side of her face, light as a raven feather, and tuck blond hair behind her ears. There is a kiss at her neck, and Integra has no words to say – to ask…do you love me?


	23. Twilight : First For Edward

First For Edward

Twilight, Edward/Carlisle, she can never have you because you're mine

Edward isn't blind, and he sees the way that Esme looks at Carlisle, and he hates her. It goes too far when Carlisle with his compassionate nature, tries to save her one too many times – but Edward stops him with his words.

"She can never have you because you're mine..." and Esme dies forgotten, while Carlisle only has eyes and love for him.


	24. Burn Notice: Senses

**Senses**

Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fiona, the scent of gunpowder burning reminds her of them.

Fiona has been worrying lately, and it isn't the sort of worry that she can share with Michael as she normally would. Where her worries were something he could do something about, and then shoot it dead. And it wasn't something she'd tell Sam about, who knew uncountable ways to sweep a woman off her feet, but when it came to the serious stuff with a woman, he wouldn't touch it within a mile. It was Michael that was their glue; he held them together and needed them as much as they'd wanted to protect him. It worked fine, that way, Fiona loved both her boys - sharing wasn't the problem.

It was something else, and Fiona couldn't put her finger on it. It has something to do with them though, of that much she was sure. That made it priority. She had a few clues though.

"When you love someone, you know –really love – you start to think they are everywhere with you, you know?" The woman who was chattering at her, Fiona was supposed to distract her – but she needn't have bothered, but the woman was in love, and that was the biggest distraction of all. Her words tugged at Fiona now, and it made her restless and snappish, so she'd been avoiding Michael and Sam both for fear they'd think less of her.

"You think of them all the time." Fiona didn't think she was that obsessed with them, but to be sure she took one of those stupid teenage magazine love-tests, and scored a "high". She was damned though, if she was going to try to pin point which of the two she loved because that…that would screw up everything she –they – had together.

It was bad, was what it was, and one of the three of them would end up hurting, and breaking them up would be messy and horrible. It was the worst idea she'd ever thought, and Fiona locked herself up in her room and cried most of the night, fearing for them, they were strong together, invincible, unbeatable – but apart they were weak – had been weak without Michael's know how and Sam's connections. What did she add to them? Was she the weak link? Was she going to get them all killed, loving only one of them?

She didn't have time to dwell on it, because in the morning was a message from Michael and a job that Sam had found for them. It involved her blowing something up, and she always like that sort of thing and maybe it would cheer her up – so she went. As the gunpowder burned a trail to the target, Fiona thought of Michael's skin to skin warmth and Sam's laugh and she knew she was in love with the both of them.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked skittishly, looking at her face, and Fiona realized she was crying as she wiped the tears away. What could she say? She was in love with both men, and doubly damned.

"Fine, just got something in my eye is all." Fiona is no fool, and she takes careful note of the watchful looks the boys give her, and she decides to tell them when she sees the signs of love in them. She just figured it out first, but it's there, in all of them.


	25. Burn Notice: Testing

**Testing **

Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fiona, Bigger bang

"I can do better then that, its kids stuff." Sam scoffed sulky and pouting like a child. Michael hid a smile in Fi's hair, she'd smuggled up against the front of his chest early before it got dark because though it wasn't cold to them, Fiona still got chilled too easily.

Fiona apparently rolled her eyes skyward to the fireworks.

"No, Sam, absolutely no – I'm not going to call 911 because my fool lover burnt the house down… again!" Michael held his tongue behind tightly pressed lips, and if he snickered a little, Fiona was polite enough not to pay it any mind. The both of them knew that Sam loved this time of year, though the pyrotechnics apparently left much to be desired.

It's a warm summer night, the 4th of July, and seeing Sam's puppyish wiggling and eagerness to stay the whole night awake and listening and watching the world's sky explode. She'd declared that this night would be spent on the roof. If there is one time of year they can all appreciate, it's this time, when people celebrate the deaths of those who dreamed of freedom and achieved.

That isn't what it means to everyone, but it's what they can agree on it boiling down to.

"Mike…." It has a little bit of whine, a bit of a plea, and Michael feels Fiona writhe against his groin in a very convincing way. He groans a little, and knows Fiona is smirking, and Sam is leering at him. Fiona wriggles around so she's in his arms and facing him, straddling his hips – and then his hands are trapped above his head.

"Come on, Sam. I've gotten a better idea; want to see if the fireworks are bigger inside his eyelids?" Michael shudders a little bit as he feels the heat of Sam's body kneeling beside him, and Fiona licks at his neck – biting so he's paying attention. As if he could be doing anything else.

"How we going to tell which has the bigger bang for the buck, you know, in effect?" Sam asks, curious and oddly serious in playing Fiona's little game. At least that's what Michael thinks he hears, because he can't really tell as Michael plays absently with an exposed nipple. Sam is very good with his hands, and most would suspect it of him, but not many would understand all that it implies.

"Oh, repeated testing, of course!" Fiona declares, and then Michael gives up thinking altogether in favor of reacting as his body is determined a free-for-all buffet at the whims of his lovers. Michael is afterwards never sure if the fireworks he sees are in the inside of his eyelids or were in the sky. Fiona was only a little disappointed at his being unsure, but Sam had assured her soothingly that they'd try again next year.

It was enough to make him squirm with worry, sometimes.


	26. Burn Notice : Deeper

**Deeper**

Burn Notice, Sam/Michael/Fiona, Poolside

Sam just likes watching them, sometimes. Today is a good day, no one is trying to kill them, and they have money enough to treat themselves to the pool at a casino. With Fi stretched out like a cat, lazy and satisfied with her lot in the world. Sam is sprawled out on a lawn chair, and Michael is dipping his feet into the water. Sam couldn't remember a time he'd been happier, and he knows it has the most to do with the company he's keeping.

Sam hasn't told them that he's mostly stopped cuddling up to rich women, his focus is now driven by Michael, he wants find out who burned him so they – yes, they – can burn the fucker back. Sam is well aware that Michael could have died, and Fiona has been keeping Michael under a close eye, if he knows it or not (he probably does) he lets her keep him in her sights. If someone comes to finish the job, they will know who it is, and they'll get Michael's revenge. All it takes is time, and they've got plenty of that.

Sam flinches a little as Michael dives into the deep side of the pool, and he glances away, and sees Fiona tense beside him, watching Michael keenly until he comes back up. Sam isn't a fool, and he knows Fiona probably figured out what they felt a while ago, what the three of them have is more then just leers and fucks. Sam can admit that.

There's a splash across his face and chest, and Sam stands up, sodden and smirking. Fiona smiles up at him with a wink, and then Sam is running for the poolside and diving in. He wrestles with Michael to teach him a "lesson", and he notices that Michael is relaxed and grinning around them in a way he usually doesn't in public. Sam only wishes there will be more poolside days, and makes a vow to see to it.


	27. Bones : Lab Day

**Lab Day**

Bones, Booth/Sweets/Brennan, sometimes he feels so young

Its Sweets twenty-fifth and he's bouncing about Brennan's lab as if it's a toy store, and he wants to try everything. Booth knows he's enjoying it, but Brennan hovers over him – though it had been her suggestion from the start, she had made while they were all in bed together. It had started with "happy birthdays", and ended somewhere between sex and Sweets asking…

("Maybe I'm old enough to be let loose in your lab?" Sweets was all wide eyed and using every bit of his considerable youthfulness to his advantage. It wasn't really fair that he could do that to Brennan, but Booth stayed out of it because, he was – if possible – even more likely to give in then Bones was.

Brennan wouldn't like his interfering when he would go to Sweets side of things. He'd learned that while in the bed of genius, it was best to leave their work to them. It couldn't, after all, be kept out of the home, it was a part of Brennan to look for answers into human nature while peering into bone and knowing it's secrets, a part of Sweets to know a person better in a few words then their best friend probably could – and a part of Booth to protect them both, because they needed it. Needed him, and that was most precious of all to him.

"Maybe, yes." Brennan had put her lips together, eyed Sweets like he was hiding an Incan bone, and then nodded curtly. Sweets had clung to her, kissing her everywhere, and making happy little noises. Then the sex had started, again)

She's keeping up with him, but not yet interfering with his through investigations of very nook and cranny, while Booth gave up a while ago on keeping up and is just enjoying the little show they might not know (but probably do) that they are putting on for him. He feels old –ancient, sometimes, when he thinks of how old Peter is now, and wonders if Brennan will ever want children (his – or Sweets, it wouldn't matter, it'd still be one of his kids because he'd help them to raise him or her, or both) and other times, just watching Brennan and Sweets is enough to feel younger then half his years.

He sneaks up behind Brennan while Sweets is watching him and keeping Brennan distracted, and snakes his arms around her and her tenseness fades away as she lets him take some of her weight and it is no burden at all.


	28. Alex Rider : What Little Boys Can Save

**What Little Boys Can Save **

Alex Rider, K-Unit, he's not the little boy they used to torment

"They're ready for you, gentlemen." Mrs. Jones says to the four men waiting behind the door, who Alex hadn't known were there until now. Not that it matters.

It's sort of inevitable that one day, Alex Rider, teenage spy, will cross paths, again – with K Unit. Alex just didn't think it'd be so soon. MI6's Alan Blunt gives him a flat eyed look, everything about him as bland and boring as the last time Alex looked, even as four men stride into the suddenly crowded office. They're wearing suits, smart dressed and black shoed, and they are trying to impress someone in the higher ups. If only because he's the bitch of MI6 and they just love to dangle him in front of things like he's a little toy, and the worlds an annoyed cat.

Alex doesn't bother to look at them to check, as he says –simply, "No." Alan Blunt doesn't smile, but John Crawley does and is.

"Now, now, Alex, surely some sense of comradeship lingers? They can protect you, get you in and out, it's surely less of a risk then going it alone. This is war, Alex, not a solo mission." Crawley murmurs, hooded eyes like a hawk taking in the shocked cold expressions of the men who probably thought Alex was some rich kid getting a kick out of them.

"When I say no, Crawley," Alex says softly, looking at Wolf, Eagle, Snake and Fox – more aptly named, Ben Daniels, who nods to him, "I mean it. They think I'm some rookie kid; it's going to get them killed if they think it while working with me. They'll try some stupid thing like protecting me, or covering me, and that'll be that. They'll be nailed six feet under before the end, a waste of men otherwise perfectly good men." Mrs. Jones does not argue, merely nods solemnly, while Wolf looks to the kid – Cub! – who's talking to MI6's best think tank minds, who don't have to move from this room for them to plan your death and have it acted out, you'd be just as dead, it made no difference if they moved or not. It gives him chills.

"As you wish, Alex….you're right, the best." Crawley purrs this, he is as ruthless as they come, a business man who could sweep your identity out from under your feet and have you wishing you were dead in hours. It takes only a bad day for a man to go insane, and Crawley's proved his worth time and time again. No one needs to die, and Crawley would rather they suffered first – it's Alex who puts them out of their misery. A blessing in disguise, Crawley would whisper as they prey.

"Are you sure you'll do this mission alone? They are loyal to England, if nothing else." Alan Blunt looks them over as if there is something lacking in them, for Alex to so easily reject them out of hand. Wolf is about to say something, but Mrs. Jones reads some facial quirk of Blunt's, and gestures to cut him off before he says a word. It's to be expected, if Blunt can plan anyone's death without ever setting his eyes on them, Mrs. Jones is his right hand, she can get anyone's information, can research anyone and anything, can make it happen, or cause it to come tumbling down at their feet.

"Then if that is all?" Alex asks, eyes on Alan and it's as if he's forgotten K Unit, no – worse – that they aren't even a blip on his radar as a threat, but as they look back one last time, shuffled out of the room, Alex looks at them, and they see that he wants to keep them, save them – and he winks.


	29. Star TrekGundam Wing : Kirk's Kids

Kirk's Kids

Star Trek reboot/Gundam Wing Mobile Suit, author's choice, one stowaway on the Enterprise might be possible, but _five_? Clearly, Jim needs to recruit these kids.

Jim's first hint that all is not as it should be on the Enterprise is when things - little things, but necessary little things - start to go missing. Bones bitches and complains about it the most, saying he's been stolen from - targeted - and sure, things aren't as they are supposed to be in inventory, but Enterprise was band new and flew into the black on a rescue, after all, Jim thinks a few little of things might have gone missing - or never put there - in the shuffle of things.

Engineering says that a whole section was shut down, which basically means that when something had breached the hull of Enterprise a whole section the size of a big city block spaced itself. Spoke says that shouldn't have happened, that it's a critical error and ships just don't do that without human intervention. Jim argues that that that's probably where the stuff was stored.

Uhura then makes big fuss about fancy first-rate communication equipment just vanishing in the middle of first shift. So now Jim knows things aren't as they should be, and someone on the ship is a thief; Spock says that it isn't crew, and as proof he's gone through everyone's scheduled on and off time; it's a massive undertaking but it proves a point to Jim.

There is someone else on the Enterprise. A stowaway, and despite the improbability of it - near imposable - Spock agrees. Then it's an outright man hunt.

Jim expects to set eyes on their mystery guest before then end of the next day. Sure enough, in the middle of Jim's sleep cycle (because the castaway just had to be difficult like that) he gets the news; stunned and in Medbay - a kid. A real kid, younger then Chekov.

Bones is having kittens, if Jim had ever thought that Bones was protective of Jim - when it concerns a kid, he's worse. Much worse.

That's how Jim finds himself face to face with a boy with a braid.

"Stunning, by the way, stings - asshole." He's got an American city accent, right off the streets - as if this is some dirt side office and not the Enterprise flying free in the black.

"What's your name?" Jim asks, bemused and showing it despite Spock frowning in his disapproving way at the kid's language.

"You first, manners, Capt'.." A cheeky grin that Jim can't help but equal.

"Well, it's obvious you know I'm Captain Jim T. Kirk." A mock salute, with smirk to match in answer. Jim gets a kick out of this kid, he has to admit.

"Duh; youngest captain in the history of ever. Awesome." Jim's grin is in earnest, and there is no sign of malice in the boys words or body language, in fact if Jim isn't blind with shock he'd say he has this boys respect.

"You're name?" Spock states, interrupting the stare down between Captain and stowaway.

"Duo." Two fingers are wagged in the air, triumphant.

"As in, there are more of you?" Bones asks softly, as if he's about to find this boys elders and give them a good talking to. Bones can get in line.

"Bingo, amigo." Duo tilts his head back, flicks his hair back and it's pointed ears they are staring at with dangerous stillness and dread.

"Romulan." Spock declares as if Jim can't see that for himself.

"Don't be like that, I had nothing to do with Neco - you know? - me and...well, my friends and I decided, what with Neco did, we owe you this - a debt, you know?" Duo has vibrant violet-blue eyes, but earnest and alive and oddly, human.

"You come from Narada. The future." A accusation from Spock never came with less enthusiasm. Jim and his first trade looks, they hadn't known there were kids on Neco's ship.

"Yes, and yes." Duo winks, and then looks behind them, his eyes suddenly dark and alien.

"Too late, 01, they know." They spin around and see another boy, pointed ears and dark hair in disarray, the expression on his face cold and distant; those eyes are dead and fixed on Duo as if the other boy is the only thing that matters.

"Status?" Cold and clipped and military, Jim can't deny that shudder that word sends down his spine. Very carefully Spock makes himself a target, putting himself between his captain and the doctor; but not, thank god, between the two kids.

"We're good." Duo quirks a smile, a real one, and leans back against the bed. Relaxed and very clearly comfortable. As '01' treads across the floor he doesn't make a sound, and reminds Jim of one of those stray dogs - almost rabid, but capable of being saved. He stands a moment over Duo, then drops to the floor, legs crossed and very clearly not going anywhere.

Jim thinks this is going to be a problem - '01' isn't leaving without Duo; and Duo isn't going anywhere without Bones tagging along beside him.

Yet Jim knows there are at least three other kids on his Enterprise - so Duo claims, and '01' says nothing at all, but seems to look at them as if they are fools to ask and fools to disagree with Duo.

They get a answer on how they are going to find the other stowaway kids on the Enterprise, from the Narada (and the future); that question promptly apply a answer in the form of three kids hustling into the Medbay as if on a rescue mission.

Bones and Spock have them 'detained' (which they are getting more food and sleep then Jim has since this fiasco started) and when Jim goes to see them, he can't help but be more then a little impressed.

"What are we going to do with them?" Bones asks in undertone, and Jim smirks drawing the kids attention to him alone.

"I don't know, Mr. Spock, should we endeavor to keep them?" Jim watches Duo wiggle, his eyes bright; the other children are more restrained in their clear interest, but it's obvious they are waiting for Spock's answer as eagerly as Jim is interested.

"Perhaps if they first pass Star Fleet schooling." Spock does not sound doubtful that the five boys can do it. Indeed, if he had, even Spock would have been surprised.

"That is more then reasonable, sir." Wufei muses, and then with a look at the rest of his partners in crime, Duo asks.

"Can we do that here?" Kids from the future (or maybe just these ones) Kirk finds, are born with brains like a genius. They pass every class test, every semester and yearly that Star Fleet can throw at them from Earth in less then a month. When they get their go-ahead, offical crew of the Enterprise, only then does Jim wonder what he's going to do with them - so he asks.

"What did you do on the Narada, you know, in the future?" Duo shares a look with the others, smirks, and leans down so his slim body presses to Jim in a way that would be inappropriate in a few years, and even now - if Jim didn't know that the only people the boys are interested in are each other. What Duo conveys in a whisper, is a secret, a weapon.

"We pilot what's in Hanger 5 in Engineering, Capt'..."

Giant 'Gundams' - robotic mobile suits - are awesome.


	30. Gundam Wing : Deathsycthe

Deathscythe

Gundam Wing Mobile Suit, Duo, there are stories told about Deathscythe's pilot

When the war is over, war stories, both fantasy and those hitting close to the reality that was, that those that fought knew as-was, as-is, surface. It's inevitable. No one puts all the stories together, puts them in a book and gives up the information for a price until the pilots - none of them long lived- die. Gundanium, they find out to late, is like a kill-switch for the human body.

Doctors were helpless, and against the wishes of the pilots, sciences took their DNA for cloning and did brain scans for memory and personality. The pilots are immortal now, undying heroes that die in every generation.

Yet there is one who took up the name of his Gundam, and it is that one - Deathscythe, who had no name but a number, Duo - that is the poor person's defender. There are legends, there are heroes, and then there is Deathscythe - the myth.

Of course Death, Duo only to the five pilots he's raised beside every generation, thinks it's just a little funny.


	31. Gundam Wing : For Brothers

For Brothers

Gundam Wing Mobile Suit, Duo, the whipping boy

Someone read Duo a story once, set in the distant past, yet there were things that were modern in it - like royalty and kingdoms- they just didn't have tech; in it there was a son, a heir, who was friends with a street rat - they were treated as brothers, each raised beside each other with enough to eat and nice clothes.

They should have been best friends, should have died for each other - but there was something wrong with the heir, he liked seeing his best (only) friend whipped - liked seeing the punishment of the heirs crimes become welts on the skin of the other.

Duo tells himself that this isn't like that, even as he's forced to kneel on cold cement, he smirks defiantly into the live-streaming cameras, and doesn't make a sound as whip meets flesh and bloody welts burst open; he'll suffer in silence, for them - his brothers, his friends.


	32. Percy Jackson : Fit

Fit

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (movieverse), Luke/Percy, Accidental stimulation.

"Shhh." Luke hisses softly in Percy's ear, rough stubble scraping his jaw as Luke turns to look over his shoulder. It's quiet and still for a forest that's full of howling sword-swinging half-god children; Percy is pressed up against a hard rock that twists out of the ground like a screw, sheltering them from the view of the trees behind.

Luke has put himself between Percy and the tree's at their back, and Percy closes his eyes remembering words said and not said. Stay close, I'll take care of you. Pressed against Luke like this, he feels the heartbeat of the other boy sinking under his skin, teasing him.

"Alright?" Luke asks, a narrow glance to him, Percy takes a shaky breath and nods. Luke nudges in closer, fitting them snugly together, and Percy hisses and Luke stills, looking to Percy at the corner of his eye. A smirk is on his lips, insolent and deliberate, his leg nudges Percy, bumping and grinding. Percy can't catch his breath, groaning helplessly.

"We'll finish this later." Luke promises, kissing the corner of Percy's lips.


	33. BBC Sherlock : Worship

Worship

Sherlock (BBC), John/Sherlock/Lestrade, double penetration

Sherlock knows his hands are going to bruise John's hips, but he just can't care. He digs his nails into the tender skin, like little teeth, dragging John closer, controlling his every movement. It's Sherlock that's in the submissive pose, but he has all the control here - John's spit slick cock is guided in and out, the full tip dragging along the roof of his mouth, teasing Sherlock's throat - he doesn't gag, even as the head threatens to go down his throat, he swallows as he feels Lestrade jerk in and out, threatening to undo him.

This is about control, Sherlock's control.

Sherlock won't allow himself to harm John, his teeth are pressed by his thin lips making them red and bruised by ill treatment. Saliva covers them, but it's slickness reminds Sherlock of blood. John struggles not to move, not to gasp or beg; not to push Sherlock any further then how far he's willing to go.

In every way that counts, Sherlock is fucking John with his mouth.

Lestrade has free reign where John does not, where Sherlock dares not try with John. Lestrade can be wild and forceful with Sherlock with no consequences that can not be undone. Between them is a companionship that Sherlock had not recognized as significant before John.

Sherlock would not allow Lestrade to touch John; he comes between them, like this, fucked by Lestrade with force and power like some sign from god, fucking John who is willing and noble and everything that Sherlock can not be - but will try to be, for John.

Lestrade grunts, his rough stride (a namesake?) of fucking faltering, halting in halves as he thrusts feebly in and out, seeking and taking and giving, as if Sherlock alone can release to him the truth and orgasm both.

John cries out a warning, for he isn't deaf to Lestrade's rough handling, for all that his eyes are squeezed shut so tightly as he shudders and pants, as if lost in a storm.

Sherlock can not taste him, but he swallows the slick liquid all the same, pleased, as what is within him is - his. Mine, he thinks looking up at John with reverence and awe - as if John is some god some to life from pagan rites. So many think Sherlock the inhuman one, but they do not see what he does - do not know.

John most of all, deserves his worship.


	34. BBC Sherlock: Fun in Frustration

There Is No "Fun" in Frustration

Sherlock (BBC), Sherlock/John/Sarah, sharing body heat

John can't sleep, as he stares unseeing at the treetops. He can't help but think this is a little ridicules, a little impossible, and maybe a little -well- predictable. If this were a novel, after all, with the love interests all in one place, unable to go anywhere or do anything, in danger, this is effectually what usually happens. Not that there was need for such illusions in the life of one John Watson - oh, no.

Sarah was quite content to share him - and watch, and Sherlock - while having no interest in Sarah, had confessed 'feeling' for John - John understood that he was Sherlock's only friend, the only person outside of family that Sherlock allowed himself to care and be concerned for. Tagging along on the engagement trip that Sarah had planned (collaborating with Sherlock, John did not doubt but did not accuse either) was a given, for Sherlock was possessive as well as obsessive. It was only later that John learned of the curious murders around this mountain top retreat. People killed in the snow, just in the doors of their cabins; it was thought to be caused by hypothermia, but Sherlock did not think so.

Sherlock, curse him, was right. There was someone - a murderer - in their cabin, and John had left his gun in the cabin (as it had been found, and fired at them though the window when they'd approached) which left them in the cold for the night. A cold they might not survive.

John had found a shelter of sorts, a tree having fallen against a pair of rocks during last nights storm. They were crowded into the little pocket, John between Sarah and Sherlock, they were warm and sleeping. They were also very naked. So too was John, but John was awake, and...frustrated.

Very frustrated.


	35. Star Trek Gundam Wing : CoCaptain

Co-Captain

Star Trek reboot/Gundam Wing Mobile Suit, Jim&Duo, they both survived Tarsus IV

When you get Jim drunk, he talks about Tarsus IV, Bones finds. He talks about starving, and sometimes the soldiers; but most of all, he talks about the rats. Rats, Bones finds out, are what Jim calls the kids younger then his own age of the time, who'd survived by stealing, food going hand to mouth with no in between.

The best thief, Jim claims, didn't know his own name. Jim gave him a name, because Jim was alone without the other boy, and Jim didn't want to be called Jim Kirk here, son of a dead hero; so they called themselves 'Solo' and 'Duo'; one and two.

Bones thinks that this Duo is dead, because Jim calls him his best friend, Death, and jokes about it. It's sad and sickening to hear it, but Bones won't ask Jim not to tell, he figures - he needs to know as much about Jimmy as he can.

So when Bones and Spock and Jimmy all go down to Sanc Kingdom, the only place which takes the term 'pacifist' to a whole different level - they refuse to fight, no matter the cause. They are well known for that trait. It must be said that if Jim gets the shock of his life, it is doubly so for Bones.

Duo lounges to one side of Princess Relena Peacecraft, a body guard. His eyes lock onto Jim as he's never seen anyone worth looking at before, and the grin on his face is downright manic.

Once the meet and greet is done, finished off by a meal and a overnight bed, Duo descends upon Jim, waltzing into the captains quarters as if he belongs there, and he stays the whole night - Bones knows that because he stayed awake, waiting and listening for Duo to come out so Bones could nab him and get some answers.

Jim comes out crowing with laughter, Duo wrapped over his shoulders, and Jim hanging onto Duo as if he's the only solid thing. Jim tells Spock to report that while the Sanc Kingdom will accept fleeing refugees, and provide support for transporting civilians -women and children; and even donate money for getting those who are innocent back on their feet, they simply will not produce weapons or soldiers or support any there of.

That does not explain Duo, Bones thinks but dares not accuse in saying. Duo is clearly carrying a ancient weapon - a gun, and more knives and metal bits then is clearly necessary - more then enough to set the metal detectors off - but those detectors... they don't go off.

Duo follows Jim around, even when he's the one supposed to be giving a tour - another boy, not a soldier but with the look, all but takes over Duo's duty. Bones doesn't miss that the names; Heero, Duo, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei - are numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively. The boys are even called by their numbers, once or twice, when the palace guards (clearly not soldiers, these) slip up when addressing them.

Bones half expects that either Jim or Duo will childishly protest that Jim has to leave- but no, neither says a word, until it's time to beam up, and Jim says "four" instead of "three".

As Duo explains when Princess Relena Peacecraft hales the Enterprise for a explanation.

"I'm where I belong, Princess - my stay was never going to be forever, tell the others that this time...don't follow me?" Duo smiles when he says that, but the look in his eyes is serious.

Spock is no fool, he pulls up a file on Duo - and shares everything with Bones when he asks. Despite that mile long list of crimes and pardons and treason and imprisonment and outright torture and pardons for all that Duo has done, it's a history with a weight to it. It haunts Bones in his sleep, that Duo calls himself Death, the god - and death certainly follows, but if Duo is Death the other four of the bodyguards of the Princess of Sanc are equally bigger then belief could hold without having set eyes on the team.

Duo is a pilot, one of the last war-pilots of space before Star Fleet became a power to be reckoned with; behind Star Fleet is the Sanc Kingdom, a idea planted on Earth - and behind the Sanc Kingdom and its impossible stance, are the last (supposedly, lost) pilots.

For all that, not even Bones can deny that it isn't good for Duo - the Enterprise - and Jim, Jim doesn't seem so smothered with the weight of command, for all that it's not written down, no one can deny that Jim considers Duo anything less then his co-Captain. They're a lot like twins, and if Spock ever has his hands full with them - he never protests.


	36. How to Train Your Dragon: I'll Stay

I'll Stay, part 3/3

Stoic/Gobber, brothers in arms

There was a time when Stoic would have gladly have seen Gobber dead. Stoic always knew he would be the Chief of the Island of Berk, as his father had, and his father before him seven generations past. Gobber was not born of Berk, he was born in the far northern lands, were the ice never melted from the ground; a dying and stubborn people, Viking, yes, but a different and stranger breed then the people of Berk.

Once, their people had been enemies – Stoic had never met Gobber or his like in battle- but he knew all the same that when summer thaw came, Berk ships went north to raid Gobber's kith and kin. One day they returned, and Gobber was the last of them; a gift, a slave – for the Chief of Berk.

Stoic's father had been that Chief in those days, and did not want Gobber.

Stoic did, and in trying to find a place for Gobber and convince his father to keep and shelter a slave, a man who did not die in battle and who's afterlife will be cursed – but who's life is saved, by Stoic. In that way, years later, Stoic can see himself in Hiccup – just a little bit – and he thinks he can understand his son.

Gobber has scars, visible ones – and the cold never seems to bother him, even when he is away from the forge – he is trusted to _make weapons_ (though he can never take them into battle again) that Stoic is only now getting proper training on.

"I want to train with you." Stoic says when they meet face to face and Stoic manages to blurt out words that mean something in front of him.; eyes adverted from the spinning stone that flares sparks when it touches the blade. If his cheeks are flushed, he blames it on the heat of the forge, not the sight of Gobber without a tunic and sweating.

"That," grunts Gobber as he turns the blade to the other side, his focus intent upon it "is a bad idea."

"I'm not afraid of you…" Gobber hasn't looked at him once in the eyes, not once, since Stoic took step into the forge, his voice trails off.

"And why not, huh?" Gobber asks, amused, eyes flicking up to glance at Stoic for only a moment.

"You're mine." Stoic answers, careless and stupid.

"Am I now?" Gobber's lips twitch in what could be amusement – or annoyance – but his eyes are fixed on the spinning stone and the sharpening blade, as if it represents an impossible dream.

This time, Stoic can't answer him; his tongue is caught as his mind spins in loops, caught in a trap of guilt.

"Here. I've got work to do, get gone." The handle of the sword is warm in his hand and slightly damp – Stoic imagines it comes from Gobber's sweat. He leaves silent and wordless, slinking away like shadow come morning. Gobber watches him go, but when Stoic is safely out of his sight, still pink cheeked, he licks the handle with Gobber's sweat upon it; it tastes of salt and leather and metal, and smells of musk and smoke, and he's flushed and trembling as he looks about to make sure he's alone after he does it.

The next day, Stoic is back at the forge again; his father's axe needed sharpening, and Stoic had volunteered to go see it done.

Gobber doesn't seem surprised to see him, this time Stoic doesn't speak, but Gobber knows what needs doing all the same – taking the axe in hand and shies away. Stoic wanders about the workshop – looking, he glances back, making sure Gobber's attention is fixed and focused on the sharpening before he dares reach up and touch a sturdy shield made by Gobber's hands – it's new, and the spear – and there are other more dangerous things, examples of his skill that Gobber used to express his value for the Chief, wordlessly – for this skill needs no words, it's obvious and needed.

"I…I'm sorry." Stoic says it softly, under the scraping of stone and blade, that he isn't sure that Gobber hears him.

He doesn't know until the spinning stone stops, and he looks up, and Gobber is looking at him.

"Why's that?" Gobber asks, moving over to Stoic and putting the axe in his hand, his flingers brush and tangle and clench and Gobber lets go of the axe, but Stoic doesn't – he can't.

Stoic only shakes his head, tongue caught and tangling again – for a far different reason, and he fleas when Gobber says nothing else, but waits, and Stoic can't say it and can't let go.

His fingers tingle with fire-like warmth the whole way home, until he's in bed, tangled in the sheets and furs and muffling moans and cries.

Gobber comes to the dragon cage the next day, when Stoic is training, and he nearly loses his head to a Hideous Zippleback at catching sight of him. Gobber throws a rock at one head, which hisses and snaps at the head that was about to make a snack out of Stoic. They tangle up, hissing and snapping, until Stoic's training teacher puts the beast down.

"What was that Stoic? Focus! Gobber, work with him, won't you?" There is further muttering into his beard, but Stoic pays it no mind, he looks to Gobber and wonders if the guilt of what he's done is plain on his face.

"Aye, sir." Gobber presses his lips together, looking to the fallen dragon, then to Stoic, clearly unimpressed. He says nothing to Stoic, however much Stoic might wish he would. He has a shield in hand, and that is all, as the dragon-mimicking call of a horn goes out – and then Stoic has no time to ask why Gobber gets no real weapon. An answering cry sends chills down Stoic's spine that knot in his belly; Monstrous Nightmare.

"No – wait!" Stoic says, but Gobber and the training teacher both ignore him; his teacher rubbing his hands together with a vicious look to Gobber, as if he can't wait to see him killed. Gobber only glances at him – putting himself in front of the younger boy.

"Hold your ground – and get down!" Gobber snarls at him, and Stoic obeys, his knees feeling too weak to hold him up, so he drops to the ground. It's just in time too, as Gobber had put the shield forward just as the dragon snarls and a storm of fire embraces the ground around them.

Everything is burning and golden, molten fires like a forge. And just like in a forge, Stoic quickly learns, Gobber is right at home facing a dragon.

"Run!" Gobber orders and Stoic obeys.

Gobber throws the flaming half-melted shield into the Nightmare's eyes. It goes after him as Stoic watches, and he realizes Gobber is as good as dead, because Stoic is the one with the sword – and another shield.

He sees the Nightmare's spine quivering as it prepares to flame at Gobber, a moving target.

Stoic stops and pants as he aims himself, and rolls into the way of the Nightmare's fire and Gobber who threw himself face down in the dirt, arms over his head and chest heaving as he closes his eyes – prepared for pain, prepared for death; and granted neither. Gobbe quickly realizes that he's not dead, and opens his eyes, turning to face Stoic who's put his weight behind the shied, holding it up as flame licks and all around, like a Viking cleaning the plate of a well cooked meal.

The Nightmare shrieks at being denied, but backs slowly away. Gobber's grin is bloodthirsty as he picks up the sword Stoic had dropped, Stoic throws the melted shield at the Nightmare in a trick to get it distracted – so recently learned – and Gobber's aim is true as he puts the beast down, the blade coming up from under the jaw.

Stoic cries out in victory, knowing that he's a man now – he's proven himself, with Gobber at his side.

His father is proud, and they feast – and when Stoic is supposed to go to bed, he sneaks out, a boy-turned-man's tradition, but where he goes isn't. The forge is still burning when Stoic enters, and Gobber sits by the fire, and when Stoic joins him – Gobber looks him in the eye.

His breath catches at what he sees there; amused pride, spiteful lust, and a deeper thrum of brotherhood.

Gobber is his, its true – but no more or less then Stoic is Gobber's.

Among the people on the Island of Berk, a slave can earn his or her freedom back, doing the great deeds of Vikings, and certainly Gobber is free this night ever-after. The saving of the Chief's son, and the slaying of the Nightmare, it earns freedom among them.

"What will you do?" Stoic breaths the question out, soft, his heart pounding in his ears as he waits – he doesn't breath again, not until Gobber answers. Stoic will never admit to being afraid of losing his friend, not after that night – but he might have begged, had Gobber said anything else.

"I think I'll stay." Gobber muses, and Stoic can't help clutch Gobber to himself in something like a hug: he denies the tears on his cheeks, but he'll take the kiss offered any day. Stoic slithers into his lap, and Gobbers hands cradle his hips, rocking them up and down, against the solid length that Stoic can feel.

His cheeks burn and Gobber's lips press against his neck, nose cold and nuzzling there, then sharp teeth against his earlobe, and a hot lap of a tongue that burns all the way though him.

He shudders and shivers and Gobber unfastens his leggings, tugging then down to his thighs, then pausing to admire the view, all red hair and soft tanned skin. The rest of him goes just as red as his hair, when his fingers fumble with untying Gobber's own belt, he laughs soft and just as eager, helping, and then letting Stoic sit on his thighs and get a good long look at him. All pale and gold, like molten metal, and Stoic is like flame itself as he latches around Gobber, demanding and greedy.

He suckles on the fingers Gobber offer him, knowing some of what is coming next, when rough fingers probe at his ass, he kisses Gobber and closes his eyes and tries not to think or tense.

"Aah.." He breaths in protest, wriggling in the older youths lap, desperate and hoping when Gobber pauses that it doesn't mean he'll stop.

"Ya sure?" Its' the only chance Stoic will get to stop this, to say no.

"Need this, need you." Stoic closes his eyes and shakes, he's never felt like this, never trusted anyone this much, and when Gobber kisses his forehead and nudges forward, Stoic doesn't cry out as he's filled up. He knows this can be painful, he expects it – was told of it as bluntly as he was told a woman's first time will hurt her, and his own first time will hurt as much.

Gobber bucks gently against him, soothing and bobbing, like the ocean tide – inevitable. He pants and breaths, and shivers – just barely stopping himself from begging for more. Gobber somehow knows it, and with hands that will leave well-earned bruises in the morning, he helps Stoic ride him, until Stoic isn't sure which of them is taking the other – because his body burns with Gobber and interlocked like this, he doesn't know where one of them ends and the other begins, he's filled up and taken and then overflowing pleasure makes him shake and cry out.

Gobber holds him tight, thrusting him up and down, using him, and Stoic clings tight and whimpers and gasps until Gobber shudders to a slow gasping halt.

Mine, Stoic thinks.

"Mine." Gobber says with a kiss that is rough and pleasantly burning.


	37. Alex Rider : Cub of KUnit

Cub of K-Unit

Alex Rider, Alex & K-Unit, They where there when SCORPIA tried to assassinate Alex outside of the bank

Cub tenses up when he steps though the office door of one Alan Blunt and sees Wolf and Snake on the right side of the door and Eagle with Fox on the left, temporarily his step fills in a blank in the middle through the door way, so they look like K-Unit in file - it should feel right and reassuring, but Cub looks as if he thinks he's walked into a trap; and Wolf wishes he didn't look cornered.

He's a kid - he's the Cub.

And Wolf thinks he deserves a little better then that look, as he's personally responsible for saving the kid's life, after all. It chills Wolf, that Cub might think life - his life - is so cheap that saving him meant for Wolf to trap him later.

"What are they doing here?" Cub demands of Alan Blunt and Ms. Jones in a tone that makes Eagle choke with it's impudent demand.

"Mr. Ben Daniels here, whom you know as Fox, would like to be our agent - his team tagged along: when they heard we were waiting for you, we could hardly shoo them away, could we?" Alan blunt has a nastily superior smile on his face, and Cub frowns and takes a second look at his former K-Unit team.

"I'll come back later." Cub's look to Alan promises a sort of revenge that has K-Unit itching to take him aside and ask him what's going on. This isn't normal - it isn't even sane, but here they are all are and it's obvious that Cub's the one being manipulated - threatened, and somehow all of K-Unit and MI6 are all tied up in a knot.

Cub pivots to turn around, his spine straight and sure - Wolf shares a glance with Eagle, what did they do to earn that much disregard? Or is it even them Cub's turned his back on?

"It seems these men are willing to keep up with you. Back up, so to speak." Ms. Jones says softly, and Cub looks over his shoudler at her - at Alan Blunt.

"Send them back. I don't want them." His eyes catch Wolf's and there is something like a plea in them, like the kid is all but screaming in his head away, away, run, please - run!

"Cub -!" Snake says, shoulders slumping, a hurt look on his fair face.

Cub meets his eyes, and there is something cold and distant in that look. Snake looks to Wolf when Cub takes one step away, then another.

"Well men, you heard the boy - will it suffice to satisfy you?" Ms. Jones asks, her question aimed for Fox.

Ben Daniels hands clench into fists, his jaw locked and teeth grinding.

He goes after Cub, and the rest of K-Unit follows him.

They try to catch up with Cub as he goes down the elevator - they take the stairs: they catch a glimpse of his jumper though the revolving doors and trot after like dogs following a cat.

Wolf hears it and starts to run, Fox sees the glint of gun fire on the roof outside the opposite building and half grunts half sobs as he races after, Eagle sees Cub lurch in his step -falling - and knows they'll be too late but takes his handgun out and fires at the Gentlemen on the roof - the crack of gunfire finds its mark as the tall man tumbles off the opposite roof.

It's Snake that's beside Cub's fallen body first and his fingers pressed against a pale young throat that find the pulse that quickens hope in K-Unit: Eagle and Wolf stand guard over Cub's fallen form while Snake works to save him and Fox informs MI6 that Cub if fallen, critical; and when the ambulance arrives medics don't ask SAS men if they are family to the pale blond teen, they file in and pray - and when they exit, it's Fox that recognizes the hospital and knows the value of their MI6 Cub, for no expense is spared.

They work shifts inside Cubs room: Wolf first, and he meets Jack and learns Cub's name is Alex Rider. Fox takes next shift and meets Alex's best friend Tom. Snake meets Sabina -and gives good advice the girl might take. Eagle sees Alex wake up and turn to see Paul: and later argues how was he to know that on top of assassination their Cub was in danger of kidnapping - but there they are on the floor, four dead men from Force Three.

Alex is convinced by four grown ups that all is not a coincidence; K-Unit takes care of it's own, and Cub is theirs whether he wants to be or not.


	38. ThorTorchwood: Through the Rift

Through The Rift

Thor/Torchwood : Loki/Jack

Loki was filled with despair, aching pain that he had failed them, as he looked at his father's face (not his father, Odin) at his brother (not his brother, Thor) he realized they would trust him only at a distance. Never again would they hold him as close to their hearts as they once had. He would be with them like a shadow, a memory of what could never be, what he could never have. He'd lost it before he'd realized what he would lose with the risk he took in his cunning. Loki had thrown that away into their faces – and for nothing. He had never hated so much in his life as he hated himself; his own blood was putrid slime, cold as his hard heart, cruelty of a being worse then any blood-lusting beast lurked in his cunning mind. Loki took a breath at the edge of the abyss, looked to his father's straining hands – trembling ever so slightly – at his brother's wide eyes. Odin could not hold both Thor and Loki, try as he might. It was up to Loki to make a choice, to see Odin fall with Thor and he, or give them a chance - a gift that he had meant in his actions. He took a breath, and said nothing, silver tongue failed at last – he let himself fall.  
This, he thought in satisfaction, I can do right. Taking his own life in a fall to death he could grant his damned blood, even if he had failed to wipe out all those who drew life from like blood.  
Falling to the depths, falling among the stars, falling into death, the twisting darkness at his back he felt like a wound, pulsing and greedy.

Jack Harkness watched the night sky, in all the years of his life, the sky never failed to fill him with awe and reverence. He knew what lay up there, if not all of it, then a great deal – enough to fill an immortal's dreams. It would take a better man then Jack to be satisfied with merely that. So he had studied the stars and passing of meteorites from memory, night after night of watching had made his memory a record that any astronomer would lay down his or her life for. He knew something was wrong then, when a star fell where it was not supposed to. He traced it with his eyes - and then checked again by Torchwood's heaven turned eyes and many sensory ears, and followed it's destination to a empty valley, empty of all but a creator and at it's center a man with black hair and pale skin, bruised and bloodied but breathing.

Jack is many things, but he is not heartless or cold, so he takes the stranger home. If Jack puts him in his own bed, it is only because Jack only has one bed. He cleans him up, because Jack isn't one for blood, it stains, and it sends a shudder down his spine. Jack Harkness is not afraid to admit his age, he's merely lost track of it. He knows he can't die, and he loves a good mystery, if only because like knows like when it look's itself in a mirror. Jack's a mystery to many, but this stranger is a mystery to him.

That's all it is, he tells himself.

As if it isn't fate or subconscious want that the man (the boy?) sleeps in his bed the first night he lands (roughly) on Earth.

Loki wakes to humming and music he hasn't ever heard the likes of. His eyes flutter open, halfway, peering though his lashes in a cautious and curious way. All around him is plaster and stone, man-built. This is no rich place of smooth marble and precious metal and jewels.

He is alone all the same. Loki stands, sways, steadies. He takes a step, and another, and makes his way to the door. There stands the source of the humming (but not, Loki thinks, the music) and he is cooking. It's something like bread in a pan, and eggs already cracked and scrambled on a plate beside bacon. Loki does what has known is best, he watches, he waits.

There are two plates on the table.

The man, tall and broad and dark (Loki has known the first two all his life, the last was his alone until this meeting) and when he turns his eyes are dark blue, but he is smiling. The smile does not really meet his eyes, and this is the first time Loki has ever seen such countering features.

"Where am I?" Loki demands, quietly for his whole head and body aches.

"You shouldn't be up and about." Blue eyes measure Loki, look him up and down, and something sparks in those eyes. It's lust, Loki thinks. His skin crawls a warning he won't heed.

"I'm Jack…you are…?" The blue eyed man, Jack, gestures to the plates on either side of the table. There are seats there, small wooden things, and if Loki were anyone else – anyone bigger, or more…in truth, Asgardian, he might hesitate. He trusts his pride to sticks and at least knows it is not stone below him to break his bones. He feels that frail.

"Loki." He says, as he nibbles at the bacon. His grey eyes flash to Jack when he laughs. It startles him, that loud sound of mirth when inside Loki's skull rings solemn and silence.

"You've got to be joking?" Jack's blue eyes swim with mirth, but Loki shakes his black head, and he grows solemn and distant.

"You're really not." He muses, and Loki eats in silence, taking note that Jack has not answered his first question. He repeats it between bites of egg, licking his fingers. Jack watches, and seems hungry, but he doesn't touch the food he's made. Loki, belatedly, wonders if it's poisoned: if he should be worried and wary of this blue eyed man who'd had offered him shelter (for Loki was sure he had not fallen here).

"Where am I?" This time sharper, a demand – Jack's smile is wide and mocking.

"Why, I'd guess if you're a god like in the Norse myths, you'd call this Midgard. Cardiff? Wales? Great Britain?" Loki nods, for the way his life is shaping, this makes ironic sense – the place his brother was banished has become a making of his own exile. He had meant to die.

"Much has then changed since those of Asgard mingled among the mortals of Midgard." Loki recognizes none of those place names, only that this is Midgard.

"I'd say." Jack snorts, and then frowns. Jack's passion is for the stars, but that does not mean he's made himself ignorant of the myths of ancient man – the lore as they know it here is much closer then the vague and scattered sentences his own time places proper importance on. It's though myth that history was first figured, and come of what history won't take for fact, Jack suspects is just that.

"So there was mingling?" Jack is leering, and to that Loki's smile is as strange and full of mystery as ancient history.

"Oh, yes." Loki finds himself purring, content and fed. This is Midgard and here no harm can come to him. He quite likes the daring of this stranger.

"Damn, did you hit you're head in that great fall?" Jack asks, touching Loki's cheek. He's aware of the sting of it, the likely blood. He wonders if his blood is still red. Under Jack's watchful gaze, Loki's cut heals, skin stitching and mending, leaving the blood dry and flecking off his skin in disgrace.

Loki is still smiling, and something in it promises.

"No." Jack's thumb runs down the side of Loki's face, absently, petting. Loki licks his skin; it is salty and smells of grease and heat. Jack's indrawn breath is shaky. There is something of Loki's own broken heart and body in this man; he can see it in the dark blue eyes that hold his own grey.

"You've put me back together – given me shelter, food, how shall I thank you?" Loki's voice is pure purr, wondering aloud wicked things.


	39. Thor : Temper, Temper

**Temper, Temper**

_*My Anon. work from Norsekink*_

Thor looks to the ruin around him, the trashing of man-made machinery and rubble of buildings alike. Loki's cloak drags around the corner of a building still standing. He was fleeing, again.

Alone, again.

Thor rebels at the very thought of it, deliberately he stormed after his brother. The Avengers would not miss him right away; they were human and caught up with the ruin of human things. Thor would have Loki give him an answer for this wanton destruction.

"Brother?" Thor tosses into the dark alley as he enters it. Loki leans against the wall, cradled in the dark between these still standing buildings, as if waiting for him. Thor wonders if he is hurt, and worries so much he speaks.

"Are you hurt?" Loki sneers, his pale face twisted in the play of dark and light.  
"What do you care for your brother when you take up with them?" Thor has known his brother to be called silver tongued, but this is not always because of lies.

No, when Loki cares enough to lash out, he does so with true words. Loki says that word, brother – which Thor treasures and cherishes, with mocking disdain -distaste.

Loki pushes himself away from the wall, and Thor wonders if this is it, if this is when Loki will disappear. Thor snarls and strides to where Loki stands, backing him back into his place. Cornering him.

"You are selfish brother. Will not their lives will be but a blink of an eye to such as you and I?" Thor's growl fills the dark with a rumble like thunder. Loki's eyes flick upward, clouds gather above their heads. Loki smirks, as it's obvious he's touched a nerve – perhaps guilt. He can not help but dig deeper, his words like a wicked plant burrowing into his brother's heart and bones.

"You play with mortal lives, Thor. You seek to be their hero, their god, loved as you once were. You're good and noble, accuse me all you wish of doing evil and trickery in your great shadow, a stain to blight your noble eyes, but it is you who led me here." Loki's eyelids are low; a lover's look, mocking.

Thor does not know if it is that look which he has missed all these mortal years alone, like Loki, when they should not ever be apart nor opposite. Or if it is those too true words striking true rage. Rage that must go somewhere: must do something.

"I do not regret you, brother." Thor never will regret Loki, as his brother so accuses.

"Can you prove it?" Loki whispers as it begins to rain. Thor's hand strikes the wall by Loki's head, lightning striking, casting Loki in light and Thor in shadow.

"You would do well to shut your mouth." Thunder above rumbles threatening, and Loki shivers at the promise of it. Thor has his limits, Loki knows well.

"Make me." Loki smirks. Thor looks to him, lion yellow mane of hair wetting, making Thor look vulnerable. It is then that Thor kisses him in a rush of heat and raw need, the smell of a freshly brewing storm and the stink of sewage and alley trash. Loki does not struggle, but moans. He wants this, wants the show of brutal strength and power, he's missed Thor, and that is Thor in essence. Loki waits and wants, the anticipation breaking Thor's great restraint.

It is Thor's hands that snatch hastily at his pants, yanking or breaking Loki's belt, or the ripping in Loki's ears is his pants themselves. Loki smiles against his brother's lips, and Thor growls, the sound like thunder above fills Loki. With thunder comes lightning and rain, and it is the lightning that Loki now anticipates.

Thor is like thunder, rumbling and raging, he's the storm, and his lighting is lust, but the rain Loki does not linger on.

Loki is soft and submissive against Thor, doing nothing to help or encourage his brother in the problem of getting out of his own clothes. Thor pins him to the alley wall, with his free hand he undoes his own pants more gently, but in no less earnest haste.

"Is this what you want, brother?" Thor asks between muffled kisses along Loki's neck, the electric heat of Thor's lips on him is joined by the searing heat of Thor's skin against Loki's own. Their lower bodies meet and rut, in playful warning, welcoming what is to come.

Thor takes a bruising grip of Loki's thighs, lifting up to a height that fits them, familiar and sure. There is no preparing to meet Thor in this most intimate of ways, no wet probing or teasing, what would kill a mortal, Loki alone is strong enough to meet half way in urging. Loki is still smaller and slighter then his brother, but weaker? Loki is no less then Thor, merely stronger in stranger – different – ways.

"Yes." Loki promises, and Thor trusts into him, long and slow. "Yes, brother, harder Thor – I am no mortal!"

Loki's fingers draw blood on Thor's back, just as the alley wall scrapes into his own raw. Thor doesn't know when Loki took their clothes away with his magic, nor does he care. He will care later, when his brother isn't wrapped around him, clinging and making small needy noises.

"Oh, Thor – brother, yes!" Loki strains and writhes between the alley wall rock and the hardness burrowing into him, as if it belongs. He reaches for a kiss and Thor gives in at once. This, Thor thinks, is how they belong, in unity.

"Missed this." Thor confesses, forcing his way in and out, Loki is tight and Thor can not help but be pleased. He knows his brother has had no one for a lover. Yet.

"Mine." Thor promises, undoing Loki's careful control, his brother's pride hinges on his calm and watchfulness. Slinking in the shadows, where Thor is sure Loki does not belong. Loki proves him right, when he cries out, an eager whine.

"Ah!" Thor sobs, chokes, shakes, and holds his brother tight as the storm that rages through him leaves rain in its wake. It is now when Thor is at his most vulnerable, and it is now that he knows – trusts – Loki to never take advantage. Loki only breaths in his brother's scent, the storm having cleansed the smell of alley trash. An alley, Loki thinks, is where he belongs – but not Thor.

"You do not belong here." Thor says in deadly protest, as if he reads Loki's mind – or Loki is so simple to read when Thor is weak like this.

"Temper, temper." Loki chides, sure that Thor means both the alley and on Midgard. Isn't that what got them both to this in the first place? Thor will never learn, but Loki might always delight in teaching it.

"Where are our clothes?" Loki only smiles at this demanding question. Thor wonders if a walk back in the nude would be Loki's idea of punishment for this…debasement, debauchery. He is not so bad off then.

Thor does not ask again, merely kisses Loki on each cheek and forehead.

"Forgive me?" It's a whisper, to which Loki's grey eyes soften in the dark.


	40. Star TrekGundam Wing : Behind Him

Behind Him

e. elusive's prompt(s): Gundam Wing/Star Trek, Kirk/Duo, the pilots reactions to Kirk (Solo) as a part of Duo's past and how would the interact with him. _cont. from "Co-Captain"_

_*As some have noticed when you review, I respond: more so, if you review, you may ask a prompt of me as e. elusive's did.*  
_

Kirk, Heero Yuy thinks at first sight – is no one to underestimate. Blond (darkening with brown) and blue eyed he may be, but there is an energy about him that Heero can only compare to Duo's own. His reasoning swiftly proves right, in ways that Heero will curse into someone else's grave at a later date.

Duo sets eyes upon him, and his attention is soaked up – he's got nothing left for anything, anyone else. It's much like obsession – or….love. His grin though, as if he's been searching and looking, and found what he'd been looking for – would delay anyone with sense to see. It's manic, that focused look.

"02, report." Heero Yuy hisses softly, coming to stand beside Duo. He half expects to be ignored, or to have to do something to gain his comrades attention.

Duo's eyes snap to him, as if he's a threat (to _who_, Heero wonders but never asks, because it becomes obvious) – half reaching for his knife (even while he has a gun in hand, he reaches for a street rat's weapon) – Heero half raises his hands in response, they are empty of any weapons: it's Duo that is dangerous, where Heero had though him in danger, and now he doubts that was ever the case. Duo has never done that –look at him as if he's the enemy - to him, to any of the pilots, even when he should have upon first meeting them.

"Solo…" Duo had been lounging there, relaxed and lazy, now he is not. Heero hears that word though, of all the pilots – Duo had made it most obvious that he was named for a number. He was named to be paired with another, and for the first time – Heero thinks he knows who, that it isn't for a Gundam pilot team alias after all.

_Solo_, Duo says, soft and longing. His voice is like something in the bedroom.

Of course, Capt. James T. Kirk can seem to hear _that_. Like the sun shining, his smiles lights up the room, he's seen Duo (from the start), has been snatching looks at him in-between eating and breathing. It's the Vulcan, Spock, who speaks with Princess Relena Peacecraft of the peaceful harboring of refugees Sanc Kingdom.

"The Captain of the Enterprise?" Heero says it, to be sure – for he must be sure.

"Yes." Duo admits, as if it doesn't matter – and it does not, the Enterprise serves Star Fleet which is the pet of Milliardo Peacecraft (better known as Zechs Merquise the Lightning Count, their enemy turned to friend out of the Gundam war) brother and defender of Princess Relena Peacecraft. In loyalty, the heart of Star Fleet is the ideal of Sanc Kingdom.

Of course, the Captain of the Enterprise must know that, but pays no attention to Princess Relena Peacecraft. Who can end his command, well earned though she knows it is. Duo's loyalty is no thing to doubt, but instead of standing at the side of it, Heero can see that he intends to slip down the lines to follow at the heels of a lowly Captain. It is enough to make Heero hate the Captain, though it would make Duo an enemy of him – so he does not.

"You know what Princess Relena Peacecraft intends." To send the vessel that had saved t lives out, flung into the stars as a gesture of peace and discovery, to make the Enterprise into an envoy of Sanc Kingdom's ideal. All other Star Fleet is to follow at the heels of its command. A noble gesture, but a risk of no return: a risk that Relena Peacecraft would not willingly send of any the Gundam pilots who serve her faithfully into.

"I would follow him." Duo's eyes only flick to him, and then his attention is caught up again in the Captain.

If Duo is the god of Death, then Heero Yuy is likened to Judgment, the final reckoning of guilt or innocence, the executioner of that final ruling over life and death. Duo said it best; it is Heero you want on your side. That Duo would give them all up for his Captain Solo, disturbs Heero – he distrusts it: as he would not now distrust any pilot.

"Truly?" Trowa Barton asks over radio, whispering into the ears of Heero and Duo.

Duo's smile says enough. For the Captain, Duo would risk endlessly.

_"I'm where I belong, Princess - my stay was never going to be forever, tell the others that this time...don't follow me?"_

It is Quatre Winner who steps in to intervene between the wrath of the Princess Relena Peacecraft of Sanc Kingdom and Capt. James T. Kirk's career path. Quatre is wealthy in his own right, also a business man who rules over a company that serves all of known space – he has served Relena in his own way, but never subserviently. It makes, in the end, the most difference to getting Relena to see they are in the right not to intervene.

"Is your claim on him higher then ours?" Quatre Winner, the heir, the genius, asks with a doubting raised eyebrow.

"Clearly, yes – he was under my protection! They've taken him! It's kidnapping!" Relena Peacecraft snarls, she who is usually serene in nature has a temper, and knows her peace by conquering her passions. She is like nature, a force to be reckoned with, and a home to come back to safely.

"He went willingly. You do not want to make him your enemy." Quatre Winner tilts his head to sky, as if to see that wrath already approaching. Or seeing in his mind eye Duo leaving them all behind: his look is pained, if as peaceful as Relena Peacecraft is not.

"Mine?" Always before, between them, their enemies had been the same. Relena heard what Quatre was saying, that this time – she would find the pilots set against her if she went after Duo against his will.

"He would not welcome a rescuing." Quatre Winner makes sure that Relena understands his smile something fierce and protective. The pilots do not belong to Relena – they belong, one in all to their own hearts – and it is Quatre who keeps their hearts, who hears with his space-born heart their own – a power to be reckoned with.

"Let him go." Quatre Winner, quite easily, makes his words an order.

Heero, too, hears – as he was meant to. He doesn't waste breath to say it's too late.

Trowa Barton with his contacts in space - being, after all, a circus performer – is welcomed into that ring and finds his own way to the Sweeper Group that remembers Duo Maxwell quite fondly. He also brings in the Maganac Corps, Quatre's old free fighters. It is, with Wufei Chang at the side of Trowa Barton, quite the worthy force – a convoy only a Gundom pilot could be proud of.

They go ahead of Heero, who makes his own way behind, tying up the loose ends.

He pauses only to send one message to both Princess Relena Peacecraft and Quatre Winner.

"_He does not go alone_."

Quatre Winner, when he sees it, smiles and sends word for dinner to be prepared for five more – expecting company…

"Watch out for them." Princess Relena Peacecraft of Sanc Kingdom requests of Zechs Merquise the Lightning Count, who only nods in agreement.


	41. Star TrekGundam Wing : Vulcan Lies

Vulcan Lies

e. elusive's prompt(s): Gundam Wing/Star Trek, Kirk/Duo, further adventures of Kirk and Duo together

"Lie to me." Duo dares, while Jim only watches.

Spock is expressionless, but he does blink – if only mildly. Not as if Duo hasn't been at this for hours, and has passed from being mildly irrupting, illogical, to an annoyance he wants to throttle. His hands are relaxed, it is only his pulse that would give him away – but surely Duo would not see that.

"It would serve no purpose." Spock rebuffs, going about his work. Jim doesn't know if he is really working, or only pretending. Spock is the only one – the rest of the crew deck has long since given up and given into watching Duo's work – he is doing what he does best, Jim thinks. He is a master, or seems to be, for he does not give up against Spock, who has glared, and yet Duo goes on undaunted.

"Sure it would, you need to learn to lie to survive in space, go on – give it a try!" Duo is urging, with a shooing motion: a blank look and another blink. It would be enough to make a lesser man throw up his hands and groan. Duo only bounces, full still of enthusiasm for his topic of choice.

"Here, like this – uhm: Capt. Kirk sleeps with pajamas on." Duo's leer toward the mentioned man makes clear that no such thing is true. Spock raises an eyebrow at the Captain, his expression – _almost_ – amused. Certainly it's something. Where Duo is exuberant in his emotions, Spock is someone subtle about them.

Jim Kirk only shrugs, smirking at the lie, almost daring Spock to say otherwise – he alone would know between the three on the crew deck.

"This is irrelevant information." Spock allows, and Duo holds up a finger in protest.

"Ah, ah, but if there were, say, a _emergency_ – now everyone knows that if Capt. Kirk needs to be woke by a call, to do it video closed, or you'll get a eyeful: information relevant!" The dangerous glint in Duo's eyes promises that eyeful may be more then the Captain's body, but may be a fist. The crew makes quick note of it.

As if Duo has said the word "quiet" in the E.R. – the Enterprise blare warnings, beeps, and every crew member frantically turns their attention to the ship and space: as they are meant to.

Duo sees the half smile cross Spock's face - his laughter is louder then the Enterprise's false-warnings, filling up the tense fear, uneasily, the crew laughs as well, when the blaring ceases.

"Vulcan's may lie when necessary." Spock says most blandly, in response to Duo's still ringing laughter. It is Jim Kirk who rolls his eyes.


	42. SupermanBatman : Early News

Early News

e. elusive's prompt(s): Superman Returns/Batman Begins, Clark/Lois/Bruce, private life

Lois is a member of the press, a reporter who may have her faults in spelling, but when a story is brewing, is there to be the eyes and ears of the people. Reporters are, in a modern way, heroes of the modern day people – the ones without powers, the mundane and every day, the media's voice. Lois, however has a private life, and as she is a member of the press, knows where lines are drawn. Most press gives way to what she says is news and is not.

Not every reporter sees things the same way where it concerns one of their own people being the focus of fame. Her blood freezes, her fury chilling, as she hears what question a reporter has the nerve to ask her son on air and live.

"Jason Wayne-Lane-Kent, is your father Superman or Bruce Wayne?" Jay's eyes are wide, and he looks to the camera, looking lost and lonely. It hurts Lois to see, he doesn't know how to answer, it's never occurred to him to ask or wonder: he'd never doubted or questioned it being right before. Now it's as if the reporter, with words alone, has thrown back the curtain to light shadows in his life.

"I...I don't…" Alfred's hand on her boy's shoulder warms Lois with relief like no other sight: Jay isn't alone, and neither is she – it will never be that way again.

"Come along, young master." Alfred says soft and urging, a car door slams shut and Bruce Wayne is striding forward, smiling coldly at the reporter, while Alfred takes Jay gently away into the waiting limo where Bruce Wayne had emerged from. Bruce glares at the reporter as he would any criminal off the street, bringing Batman to mind.

Now Lois worries for what Bruce may do, so enraged but without his mask and outlet.

"He is _our son_. Not mine, not Lois's – not Clark's – Superman's son: _ours_." Bruce snarls it, like a threat meant to be thrown. The reporter and his camera retreat, away but not yet fleeing. Clark steps down out of the sky, glasses askew and his suit wind swept.

"Ask yourselves, two more questions without an answer - is it really your business- and worth the risk?" Everyone on Earth owes their lives to Superman, and Clark's smile is disarmingly kind, as if giving good advice - in contrast to Bruce's clear cold cut fury.

Clark only puts his hand at the small of Bruce's back, and Bruce breathes, as if all he needed was Clark to be beside him. Clark is the more dangerous; the _most dangerous_ is Superman, as all villains well know and dread - Superman, the protector and defender of the people of Earth: and everyone viewing this is reminded of the fact - and that he too has a private life he will protect and defend more fiercely still then any enemy of Earth.

Lois sits back, sighs, and calls her son who has questions brought to light too early.


	43. Phule's Company : Love Like Loyalty

Love Like Loyalty

Deviously Ruined Rose's prompt: "X Grab My Y"

Phule's Company series, Beeker/Phule

*(T_T I fail at cracky, it was meant to be _funny_ – instead it's so sickeningly sweet!) If you have never read Phule's Company by Robert Asprin, think Sherlock Holmes, M*A*S*H and Star Trek.*

_Least any think I would take advantage of my station as my employer's most trusted friend, let me remind them both that I am employed not because I need to be, being independently wealthy in my own right - but because my employer is a most worthy man to serve and stand beside. As any in my employer's military company would agree with. Secondly, plainly put in my contract is the following: that while my employer may define my duties for me, the method by which I execute them is left to my discretion. _

_Lastly, it was after all, at my employer's request in which I acted. _

"Beek…?" Phule only stumbled a little as he entered the rooms he shared with his butler, Beeker. Restlessly, his eyes intently roved about in searching. His mouth was soft with want of sleep.

"Sir?" Beeker answered promptly, stirring from where he had sat, a book – unopened – on the desk.

"I think I'm going to get some sleep…" Phule murmured, blinking at Beeker – all he could do to keep awake. Phule was one rare to give up, so Beeker knew that he had found the solution – but driven away sleep and eating for that, and now paid the price. Food would be tasteless in the rush to get it in as energy, and sleep would be heavy and deep. Beeker would guard that sleep, and gladly – as it went unspoken between them.

"A wise choice, sir…" Beeker agreed, getting up with a soft smile for his employer. That he was also his friend went unspoken between them, so obvious it was. Phule, as he did when in need of sleep, spoke hastily.

"Beek, grab me." Phule had taken a step, but the floor swayed and tilted like the sea. He sometimes hated space travel as any first flyer. Usually when he was in most need of sleep: his voice had been panicked, and his heart still raced against Beeker's easy beating heart.

Beeker, of course, had obeyed: his hands firm on Phule's waist and hips. Phule glanced to Beeker's eyes, then shyly away, hesitating. He was sure on so many things, but Beeker he would not risk – could not: never – and never was Phule so aware of that truth then in times like this. With his personality, Beeker went often unnoticed, but between them Beeker was the bigger man.

"Always, sir…" Beeker breathed against his cheek, into his ear. Phule closed his eyes and rested in this most sure embrace, his breathing easy and even, rainbows glittering behind his eyes. Beeker smiled, for a contract is much like a marriage - a butler but a gentleman's gentlemen.


	44. EurekaSG1 : Knowing Love

_Isis the Sphinx_ prompt: Eureka/Stargate SG-1

*_As the prompt was only the crossover, I went over to LJ's comment-fic to look over the prompts, there were only four, so here you are Isis the Sphinx, with the first one_.*

Knowing Love

Eureka/Stargate SG-1, Jo Lupo +/ Jack O'Neill, he taught her everything she knows (by **egalitarianmuse**)

There are days when all that Jo Lupo wants is Jack O'Neill back in Eureka. This feeling, Beverly had told her before Jo learnt the truth about Beverly – and learnt, then, not to trust her, is perfectly natural. After all, Jack taught her everything she knows about – well – everything important. Weapons, ammo, survival – Jack taught her it all and kept her going when she would have otherwise been a little girl shattered by her parent's death and brothers lost in their own grief.

Jo knows all about grief, knows enough to be sure that Jack was suffering too, after loosing his wife, his son – that he went on a suicide mission that no one in Eureka would talk about: that when he came back, he told her about Daniel Jackson – a scientist, _his_ scientist. Like he was in love.

All Jo has left of Jack now, are scattered phone calls left on her message machine from a number that can't be traced. She wouldn't try to trace them, because she respects Jack too much to do so: and if she invades his personal privacy, Jack didn't teach her everything, and there are hard lessons to be learnt if she crosses unspoken lines. It's not as if these messages are not enough, though some ramble though an hour – Jo's kept every single one of them.

It's just Jo doesn't get to actually _talk_ to Jack. She misses that. She also wants, very badly, to ask Jack what it's like to love a scientist. Jack taught her everything, true, but he didn't teach her how to know if she's in love – and she just might be.


	45. EurekaSG1 : Fitting In Again

_Isis the Sphinx_ prompt: Eureka/Stargate SG-1

*_As the prompt was only the crossover, I went over to LJ's comment-fic to look over the prompts, there were only four, so here you are Isis the Sphinx, number two.*_

Fitting In Again

Eureka/Stargate SG-1, Jo + any Stargate character, "Reality changed and I don't know where I fit in anymore. Sounds crazy, huh?" "I know more about that I can legally say." (by egalitarianmuse)

"You're not Christopher Dactylos." Jo Lupo is alone with the man, and shouldn't feel so skittish of him. She knows that, and hates that he makes her skin crawl. There is something wrong with him, something that doesn't quite fit. He's not quite human anymore.

"I beg your pardon?" He looks up at her, brows raised as if to fight the facts that she sees right though him.

"You heard me – I'm right, aren't I." He doesn't quite meet her look, eyes skittishly darting away. Not that he's afraid of her, but that he doesn't know how to respond. Doesn't remember what comes next in human interaction. Instead of lying, he shrugs, taking her words at face value and with that shrug taking away any guise of humanity as if it's as simple as snake skin shedding.

"Reality changed and I don't know where I fit in anymore. Sounds crazy, huh?" Christopher Dactylos who is not who he was, admits it. He's changed, or his entire world has – and he's lost. Jo's heart goes out to him, and out to everyone who cares about him – and she can't help it.

"I know more about that I can legally say." At that hinting, she earns herself a smile that's familiar and heartbreaking. She knows who this man is, even if he doesn't know himself.

"Do you know who I am?" He asks, finally, because Jo knows she can't just tell him. He has to want to know to heal.

"Dr. Daniel Jackson." She says it with a smile, warm and welcoming. Thoughtfully, he nods in agreement.

"I don't know if I can be him again, exactly." It's a warning that rises up from the heart of the man who named himself Christopher Dactylos after having been an Ascended.

"That's alright. We're just glad to have you back, even if you are not exactly…you." Jo knows that at least Jack O'Neill will never question that Daniel Jackson belongs on SG-1.


	46. EurekaSG1 : Now Is Enough

_Isis the Sphinx_ prompt: Eureka/Stargate SG-1

*_As the prompt was only the crossover, I went over to LJ's comment-fic to look over the prompts, there were only four, so here you are Isis the Sphinx, number three.*_

Now Is Enough

Eureka/Stargate SG-1, Any, And Jack had thought Eureka was weird enough...(by enmuse)

Jack O'Neill had lived in Eureka until the death of his son, and the divorce of his wife. He'd also met a little girl there, Jo – who had wanted to dance her life away, but he'd taught to survive. Jack still wasn't sure if it was the right thing – or the only thing he could have done to avoid seeing her eyes die while the body lived on. Jo had a spirit like fire, it needed to live to thrive.

He was proud of her, and thought he'd done as well with her as he could with any little girl, his or not.

That did not mean Jack thought he'd ever live to see the day Jo Lupo would hold a grown man's hand as he followed her about like a child – or puppy. It was Daniel Jackson, and wasn't – there was knowledge there, knowing untainted by life's experiences. By people, by Jack. It hurt to see it. To see that much innocence, and to wonder how much of it was lost – changed – by when Daniel met Jack, and was now gone – and would come back again, unavoidably.

Jack – almost – wanted to walk away from Daniel, and never have him know what he'd done in making the Stargate work, in never passing through the portal. Never let him speak to another alien, or touch something that could do this…damming, giving to- be damaged innocence.

"Daniel – this is Jack." Jo Lupo looks him in the eye and doesn't give Jack the chance to run away.

"Is he here to take me away?" There is no regret, no fear in Daniel's voice. There should be. Jack makes he's own choice, and damns the rest.

"No. We'll stay here. There is no reason you can't do your work here." Jack gives Jo and Daniel a lopsided smile, Jo looks surprised – but Daniel only nods thoughtfully. Daniel doesn't need to risk his life and his knowledge gained along with that ignorance about people too much like innocence. He's too valuable – and Jack, well, this world will be enough – he's certainly seen enough of what's out there. He can lead from the backseat – or try, he'll not see Daniel die again for going adventuring first hand.

"I'd like that." Daniel says, softly – gratefully. Jo Lupo rolls her eyes, and Jack knows that Eureka is his home –weird enough for now.


	47. EurekaSG1 : A Living Legacy

_Isis the Sphinx_ prompt: Eureka/Stargate SG-1

*_As the prompt was only the crossover, I went over to LJ's comment-fic to look over the prompts, there were only four, so here you are Isis the Sphinx, number four~!*_

A Living Legacy

Eureka/Stargate SG-1, Nathan Stark + Daniel Jackson, they name buildings and mountains after people like us. (by enmuse)

"I can save him." Daniel says, point blank, what Jack doesn't want to hear – Jack O'Neill, that is. Jack Carter looks between O'Neill and Daniel Jackson, shaking his head. He looks lost, as lost as all of Eureka is going to be when they realize that Nathan Stark is going to die, lost in everything, like sand, like light.

"He just got you back." Carter protests, when Jack doesn't say a word to agree or disagree with him. He will not, because this isn't his choice – it's Daniel's and Jack won't take that away from him. Not when so much of what makes Daniel, his Daniel was lost in coming back from being Ascended: not when Daniel is just beginning to relearn what it means to be human and himself. So Jack presses his lips together, tight and sealed, and says not a word.

"I can come back from this. That I'm living and breathing now is proof enough." Some of Daniel's old sarcasm, but his words are plain and filled with belief. When Jack says nothing, Carter steps aside, if only to watch Daniel try.

He puts his hand in, open, his fingers sprayed as if searching to touch something just out of reach. Light flickers on his hand, it's lovely and golden and glowing, but Daniel is very pale, as if pained.

"Stop…." Carter says hushed, eyes wide.

The glow spreads, engulfs, devours. Daniel is very still, expressionless, letting it happen - and Carter wonders what of his humanity he is loosing, what the cost of this will be. Daniel breaths out as if he'd forgotten how, his breath is gold dust, a cloud that swirls to where his hand is – and a body is outlined there, forming, or found.

"Stop!" Jack Carter orders it, but it goes ignored: shakily, Daniel breaths in, stuttering and stopping, as if he doesn't need the air. The body of encased in a golden dust cloud pluses, like a heartbeat: so near, so far.

"You want Stark back? Shut up." Jack O'Neill has eyes only for Daniel, but Carter obeys the grey blue eyes that flash toward him in a fury. Daniel gasps, and it feels dragged out of him.

The outline becomes something like a shadow, gaining depth, weight, height, but not quite right.

Daniel sucks in a breath, hastily, as if pained and wanting this over quick.

The shadow becomes a reflection of Nathan Stark, eyes flicking about, disbelieving.

Daniel breaths out then Nathan breaths in, Daniel's hand is wrapped around Nathan's wrist, when he tugs – Nathan follows, out to stand in the room with them. He's solid and breathing, alive. Daniel is still glowing with that unearthly right.

"No." Nathan says it first, denying when first realizing. It isn't a "_how_", Nathan Stark is too smart for that. Jack O'Neill blinks, his eyes damp, because he realized it all, and the rest of the world is only catching up. Nathan holds onto that glowing hand with his own two normal ones.

"Fight it." Daniel blinks at him, as if feeling that touch, as if wondering how. Nathan Stark has a grip on Daniel that's white knuckled, pained. Jack O'Neill takes a shuddering breath in, a sob, and turns away – because he can't watch Daniel choose to disappear in a golden shower – he can't do this all over again.

"People like us don't die like this, Daniel. You know that, we're great men, we do great things – things that are named for us and places and things we'll never see get named for us, because we are great. We leave bodies. We are real." Daniel tilts his head in, as if listening – and it's close enough for Nathan to hear that Daniel makes no attempt to breath, to live.

So he does only what he is close enough to do - what he can, he kisses Daniel – breathing air, warm and living, past cold lips.

Daniel learns to breathe like that, by Nathan's kiss: learning bit by bit to live.


	48. Star TrekThor : Minding Your Ps and Qs

Minding Your Ps and Qs

_AnnaDruvez _prompt: Star Trek/Thor(Norse Myth): Q meets Loki. Is it competition?  
Friendship? Love? Hate?

*_As_ AnnaDruvez _has reviewed just about every "chapter" of _Bite Sized Bits of Fic,_ (and only made this one request!) I really, really wanted this to be something special._ _The Norns of Norse myth live by "the Well of Urdr" and they use this holy water upon Yggdrasil daily, so the Ash does not rot. Now, very strangely, 'q' does not occur in any Norse name of person, place, or thing. The Norns made letters.*_

Q snatches Loki out of a black hole, is how it really begins. A peaceful and kindly gesture toward one of the Frost Giants of Jotunheim: one of the most _interesting_ of races that Q knows of – this is true enough. No improvement needed thank you very much: also, Q was rather alarmed that this one seemed the last of its kind so he took it away to where it couldn't be hurt or hurt itself. It's a saving gesture, mostly innocent. That Q expects a favor in return is unspoken, that Q is purely selfish to have a desire for that long body of deep blue skin, that dark hair, and those red eyes – well, that's unspoken too, and a bit ahead of himself.

That's how Q sees it. But it isn't, really, the first meeting between Loki and Q, as Loki recalls.

Loki does not take kindly to finding himself in a different time, in a different place, on a spaceship called _Enterprise_ – being prodded by a Dr. Beverly Crusher. He is not his brother and does not appreciate a lovely female face hovering over his while he feels like he has been hit by a truck. A truck doesn't even begin to compare to what the weight of Mjolnir upon his chest had been like.

Thor, breaking Bifröst (cutting the Asgardians off from all the known universe: for a time) – thwarting the one thing that Loki had determined to do with his life, to rid the Asgardians of his own inherited genes – what Thor, what Odin would do to him after? After the fall of Jotunheim, he wondered - but it did not matter now, he had failed, and his own hide saved when he had intended self destruction. Somehow.

"How…?" He asks, forgetting himself - but Dr. Beverly Crusher has no answers for the likes of him. She does, however, have questions. She does not hesitate to ask them, while he wakens and is not quite himself.

"My name is Dr. Beverly Crusher of the Enterprise. How did you come to be aboard?" She asks, calm, thought watchful of his every movement. Loki does not make many of them, he lies on his back and breathes and thinks it's enough evidence of his life for now.

"What species are you?" Bland, but interested. Loki is interested in turn – as he turns to see who'd spoken, though he flinches from that question, the being that speaks is a machine. Pale skin that can not contain blood of any color: black hair. Loki twists onto his side and surveys his surroundings.

"This is a spaceship." Loki hates to say the obvious, but it is the impossible he is facing. Impossible not because of a machine that mimics human form as closely to gain humanity, but because the woman is human. She should not then be on a spaceship, as the laws of Odin forbid advancing Midgard before it's time. It's his doing, he realizes, and that the laws of the Asgardians can not be upheld. He swallows, and looks about at the people: he must put things to rights.

Dr. Beverly Crusher is not, after all, alone. He's apparently drawn a crowd. Seeing him looking about, the machine takes it in its head to make polite introductions.

"The _Enterprise_ is commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, his staff includes first officer Commander William Riker, ship's counsellor Deanna Troi, Klingon chief of security Lieutenant Worf, conn officer Lieutenant Geordi La Forge." Loki studies them, one and all, and then tilts his head to look back at the machine mimicking human customs.

"And you are?" _They_ are a problem he understands – being on a space ship and not allowed by Odin's laws.

"Lieutenant Commander Data, an android." Slowly, Loki nods.

"I do not know how I came to be here." Loki confesses it, hushed, as there is no shame in it when no one he knows is about to see his admitting it.

"I do~!" A voice sing-songs, and feet skip eagerly forward. Everyone is tense, barely breathing – and Loki takes notice of him. Long limbed and sharp boned, and unavoidably _not human_. Loki did not expect to solve this mystery so swiftly.

"You are responsible for this?" Loki looks about himself, and makes his meaning clear. Or thinks he does, that humans are in space, and this being is answering for it.

"Oh, yes." Q purrs, thinking of all the ways this Frost Giant could thank him: and, being all but the last of his kind, he'll need to reproduce – and that is a duty Q is more then glad to step in for: for the good of the universe.

"And what, prey tell, are you?" Loki asks, soft and threatening. Or so he would sound to any who knew him, Q shivers and draws closer, enraptured.

"Q of Q Continuum." Loki only blinks, slowly.

"Your mothers - the Norns...?" Q winks an affirmative.

"Why are the humans in space?" Loki asks, his red eyes flicking over them. Uneasily, they look between one another. Q bounces closer to sit beside him, an arm wrapped around Loki's shoulders.

"I brought you here, to a time and place you'll be safe. I think you were the last – surely you are the last of the Jotunheim in this now." Loki breaths out, and he doesn't know if it's in relief to be rid of that loathed race, or to be the last, or to be…alone. With his sigh, his body shifts into what he grew up with, black hair, snow pale skin, and ice blue eyes. There are gasps, and Loki remembers that Q and he are not alone.

"What then, is the year?" This he asks, not of Q, but of the humans crowding him. They do not know if he should be protected, or if he is a danger. He is both.

"Star Date 2367." Captain Jean-Luc Picard says, confident despite Loki's different face. Loki tenses, and Q giggles.

"There is no going home, Jotunheim." Loki knew that, for the Bifröst bridge did break, and it would take a long time to fix – but _this_ long? Something in Asgard must have gone wrong: a war, a death. He cringes inside, thinking of Odin so near death to sleep so deep: of Thor, fallen and never crowned.

Loki puts his fingers on the back of Q's neck, his wrath a burning ice. Q hisses, pained, but makes no attempt to get away. He seems, instead, all to pleased with Loki's reaction – giggling as his neck darkens.

"If you go back, you will find your welcome in Asgard will not be to your liking, Loki – so you would not be missed, I took your place in-between the times of here and now." Loki is very cold inside, and rather then risk killing Q – throws him toward the wall. He blinks out of existence, before falling and smashing his face in – standing before the Enterprise crew, and bows – grinning.

"Enterprise crew, I present to you Loki Odinson, though born of Laufey – the curious case of a Jotunheim raised as an Asgardian." Loki, despite his weakness, rises and curls his hand into a rune shape – but Q is gone and Loki curls those outstretched fingers into a fist. He breaths in, out, but breaths and lives.

"He is gone." The Enterprise ship's counsellor Deanna Troi reassures him, her eyes dark and worried – for Loki.

"_I know_." Loki affirms telepathically with her with a soft smile, she feels his emotions – and he feels hers. Her eyes widen at that realization.

"I do not know what Q has done to my name, my family. May I access that history?" Loki could find it out without asking, but it is better to ask, especially if he is to be stuck upon this ship for any great length of him. Uneasily, Riker looks to Captain Picard who nods, slowly, so there can be no mistaking his affirmation.

"I would help him, sir." Data states and Loki bites his tongue, that he needs an android to show him how to use technology! The idea is laughable. It is far more likely that they want to keep an eye upon him, and so are going about it…politely. Loki steps to Data, who leads him to a computer – he puts his hands upon it, closes his eyes, and uses technology so advanced to be called magic – to pull up the information stored, and put it into his mind, images flashing before his eyes.

The history of humanity is there, and Loki opens his eyes, and found his cheeks are wet. Q had spoken truth, had fought Thor with his skills and his face, and Thor….Thor must hate him.

"I see." He nods thanks to Data – to Captain Picard, and blinks away his tears.

"You are alone, the last…" Deanna Troi can't help but say what she feels from him, his emotions having gotten away from him. He reels them in, so quickly and so skilled that the ship's counselor takes a step forward, following, as if she is a fish hooked by his pain.

"Yes." Loki confirms, soft and sure.

"Then you are _the Loki_, god of lies, mischief." Geordi La Forge mutters, wonderingly, Loki can not see his eyes behind a visor: but knows well that tone of voice.

"Yes" A second time, damning as the first. He admires in these people, that they face the truth, a god, and do not say what Loki wants to hear. They are…interesting.

"Then you bring Ragnarök?" It occurs to Loki, the irony of Norse myths, that they say he was trapped in a dark "cave" – and got it right, for a black hole might well be that – that poison drips upon him, and that the poison was in his heart all this time – that he is bound by the flesh of his own kin. That he will bring about the end of an age. It is not any human that asks this of him, but a Klingon.

Loki looks down at his own hands, hands that can bring with a touch - frostbite. Loki chuckles.

"I was truly named for fire, for I am the flame of creation, Ragnarök is not the ending, but a new beginning. Yet I am a Frost Giant of Jotunheim." A never-ending irony, a truth his father – Odin and Laufey both – had named him for.

He clenches his hands into fists.

"This I give my word upon, mortals, so take heed. There is no greatness in the godlike, and the likes of Q will soon deal with the likes of me and mine. So, you see, you will be free of us, one and all – may you never thank me for it." Loki's eyes gleam red when he takes one last glace at the crew of the Enterprise, and then passes away from sight.

Loki stands at the heart of Asgard, and bows low to Odin.

"You have been long away, Loki Odinson." His father greets, and Loki stands straight backed as any Odinson. Loki smiles, his eyes gleaming green. Q finds himself at the feet of Loki, entrapped in chains.

"I was not myself." There are hushed murmurs that echo in the high walls of the court hall.

"It is good to see you, brother. We feared Q had lost you." Thor stands at Loki's side, his hand on his brother's shoulder. At his feet, Q giggles.

"What will you do?" Frigga asks, she who is mother, and not mother, of the two sons of Odin. She who knows more wisdom then she will ever speak, but knows well what it means to go to war.

"A trade: Q took me from Asgard's reach for over three hundred years. Now he is mine." Loki smiles, and in silver light like water, the Norns appear – they have never left _t_he Well of Urdr, but do so now – for Q is born of them. Loki does not expect such a show of loyalty – though a loyalty to who is a question about to be answered. They look between each other and then bow their heads to look down upon Q.

"To quick." Old Urd warned.

"That's that." Verdandi sighed.

"We agree." Skuld smiled.

"Abide by Loki." Urdr, their mother, Q's grandmother – declares for all to hear. It is a warning for Q, and a blessing to Loki. All four look to him with favor, and he bows his head in a gesture of likened respect. When he looks up, they are gone. Slowly, Loki smiles at Q, kneeling down to speak into his ear.

"You are mine." Q only shivers, for it's a truth that Q has never fought. It's meant to be.


	49. Star TrekSuperman : Farm Boy Fun

Farm Boy Fun

_May Eve_ prompt(s): Star Trek/Superman Returns - Jim should have known better than to  
think even a starship could outrun Superman.

*_It amuses Abby Ebon that Clark grew up in Kansas and Jim in Iowa, practically corner states…_*

Warp drive, for Earth's people, was basically playing catch up to Superman with science. Capt. James T. Kirk was very proud of his _Enterprise_. Kirk also happened to be one of the few men know knew Superman's real identity. This was because of a fieldtrip Riverside students had taken to Smallville (well, not Smallville, per say, but it was along the way) that ended in a rivalry close enough to be called a. friendship. It kept Kirk sane, before the Enterprise.

"You've done well for yourself, Kirk." Clark states, as proud as any friend of Jim Kirk can claim, taking a seat at Kirk's table without even a by-your-leave. At his side, Spock is swiftly tense, not liking his space being invaded. Not liking Clark Kent's easy familiarity with him: or perhaps sensing something alien about the secret identity of Superman.

"Kent." Kirk drawls, in an accent he hasn't had since his teens.

"You're ship, she's a beauty." Kent goes on, smiling openly. Kirk feels only slightly mollified. It's enough to let his guard down, Clark leans in, and breaths on his ear and makes him shiver in lust and want and needing _now_.

"A bet, Captain…?" It's a purr that Spock can hear, sitting right between them. Kirk knows he can't back off, or he'll be thought a coward, instead he grin – reckless and sure.

"The stakes..?" Kirk hisses the words, hinting. Clark Kent eyes him from head to toe, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.

"A race, winner buys the looser dinner." Kent grins, knowing Kirk won't let this go.

"A date?" Spock asks of the two, but goes unanswered, as Kirk takes Kent's hand and shakes on it.

"A deal." Kirk agrees, and then they part ways, Kent moving on, and Kirk staying in his seat, sprawled out and more relaxed then he's been since he last saw Kent. He smiles at his glass of rum and coke, drinking to fond memories - to come.

Sure enough, the Enterprise, being a top line ship of Star Fleet finds itself called to another planet. They go warp, the sensors being just good enough to detect Superman catching, matching, and speeding along.

It's a deal he doesn't really regret (though he lost, _badly _– it's not really an all-bad thing), writhing on his bedroom sheets in his cabin on the Enterprise: Superman's kisses hot and trailing down his bare belly skin.


	50. SG1Gundam Wing : SGBoys

SG-Boys

_Erisabeisuu_ prompt: Stargate SG-1/Gundam Wing: SG-1 finding (either  
the things themselves or about them) the Gundams and a classic Jack reaction  
with Daniel, Duo and the rest along for the ride.

_*This I think would best suit Stargate SG-1, season 9, episode 13: "Ripple Effect", and after Endless Waltz: Wing is Heero Yuy, Deathscythe Hell is Duo Maxwell, Heavyarms is Trowa Barton, Sandrock is Quatre Raberba Winner, Shenlong/ Altron is Chang Wufei: I don't see their Preventer names changing from the Gundam they were known for.* _

o.o

Teal'c does not know all the facts of what has occurred, but the gist of it (as O'Neill explains over a hasty phone call) is this_ – _that the Chappa'ai has ceased to function as it should. It does not act in one way to take the team to another place, or in the other way to bring peoples of another place to them: instead, until it can be fixed, this Chappa'ai brings all other worlds' versions of themselves to them. Or that is how Teal'c understands it to be. That is until he is proven wrong, and understands just how wrong they all are before the rest of Stargate Command, because Teal'c sits in communication, watching through the window as the Chappa'ai does not close, golden chevrons gleaming, the iris trap closed tightly.

"_Preventers, this is Wing, incoming_." The phrase comes in short and clipped, every inch military. The voice though, is young, as young as his son Rya'c should be.

"W-what?" Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman stutters back.

"_Shake a leg people; we've got Replicators up our asses. Get that 'Gate open! Hell out_…" Despite an otherwise dire message, that voice is just as young and oddly cheerful. As if it enjoying the danger.

Walter pauses to glance to General Landry, who frowns, and makes a gesture for the communication equipment, Walter gives him a thumb's up, and the General speaks.

"This is General Landry of Stargate Command, I'm sorry, but all Stargate activity is restricted to emergency status. There might not be a way to get you home if you come through." It's a warning delivered in a gentler voice then he would use regularly- against someone who didn't sound like children, it's caring. Walter shifts uncomfortably.

"_Sandrock speaking, you are understood: this is an emergency, repeat: request_ _immediate evacuation_." The last words are stressed, and there is a pause and a muffled but clearly pained cry.

"_Shit, get you're ass down Winner_!" A different boy's voice, Asian and abrupt: there is the _tap-tap-tap_ of repeated muffled automatic gunfire, then quiet and deliberately even breathing – the communication line had been forgotten, left switched 'on'. General Landry flinches, and makes a gesture to open the iris. He's obeyed without any hesitation, a sort of hope lingers in the air – that they haven't acted too late.

"_We are sitting ducks, General. Dead ducks._ _Get that 'Gate up and running, Stargate Command_." Manic cheer, that Teal'c does not know for genuine mad gladness, or forced. It's hushed, like a threat.

"You're clear to come through." General Landry says, eyes riveted on the Stargate. It's open and waiting.

"_Incoming_!" It's the only warning they get.

The first through is blond and bloody, he limps – but his feet hardly stumble, before two brunet boys have a hold of each of his arms over their shoulders. That they are the first though for a reason is obvious in holding their injured comrade, once they reach the end of the ramp, they lay him down and fire into the Chappa'ai at over-head height, reckless and mad as only the hopeful can be.

"_Go, go, go_!" Moving as one two boys hustle though, keeping their heads low. Where the three before had hair that was shoulder-short, these two have hair at least shoulder length, one is braided in auburn and brown, while the other is ponytailed and black. They don't pause to kneel down and shoot back into the Chappa'ai. They kneel closest to it, daring danger to meet them first.

"_That's a wrap, close her up_!" Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman doesn't need to be told twice, or at all, because the iris is already shutting.

The gunfire stops, all of a sudden, it's just silent as the grave. Over the air-waves, one of the boys sighs, turning around to face them – watching the watchers, a bit like a two way fish bowl. One boy waves, and then speaks.

"_Knock, knock_." It's the braided boy who's grinning. Teal'c is not surprised.

o.o.o

"Easy." Samantha Carter, in her green uniform – the only mark of her belonging to this universe and its world, warns the medical team that's on stand by before they make the approach. These boy-soldiers just came out of a battle, and though each is so very still and watchful, she would have a twitchy trigger finger. There is no question to the other four following their injured teammate, and if the bonds these boys share are anything to the likes of SG-1, she would not ask it of them. Swiftly, introductions are made.

"Quatre Raberba Winner, ma'am." The only blond boy gives her – another blond – an easy smile, winning as his name. It is tainted with the pain of his wound, into his face and in his eyes. He does his best to hide it.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Colonel Carter: what were you hit with?" She gets a good look at it, under the harsh lights of the med-bay and the thin white sheets stretched taunt over the bunks. It's a bleed as much as it's a burn. Quatre Winner really should not be conscious with that much pain. She doesn't know how he's doing it.

"I…uh…didn't see it?" Quatre flushes, as if that's something to be ashamed about. His flushed face brightens to a cherry red, and he looks to his team unhesitatingly – trusting, the boys that haven't parted from him. They take up out of the way positions, as if they've done all this before in a medical facility. It makes her uneasy, their ease.

"Heero Yuy." The messy brown haired boy with intent blue eyes nods to her before he says anything but his name, as if he's practicing his manners: or having a name. "Beam ray, Ori-Replicator modifications." Sam goes cold inside, chilled. She doesn't know how to treat this kind of wound, though her imagination runs with it: at a loss she reverts to what she knows, cleaning it up the best she can. None of the five say she's doing it wrong.

"How…?" Sam's grasping at straws, and knows it.

"So there isn't an Ori-Replicator alliance here?" Quatre sounds relived, and awed. Sam is only grateful she's never seen such a thing, and only shakes her head – she doesn't know how theses boys have survived, if they've been fighting such a force all this time.

o.o.o.o

"So, what's your world like?" Daniel Jackson asks, and really can't help himself. The boy he faces only blinks, eyes flicking to his friend, who sighs. It's clear that one of them is going to speak, and it won't be the one Daniel addressed to start with. These are the strangest teenagers Daniel has _ever_ been faced with – he and Mitchell are taking turns debriefing them. It would go smoother if – one – that friend of theirs hadn't been hurt bad enough to be isolated, and two – if, like normal teens, they wouldn't shut up. As is, it's getting to reply with more then a sentence that's the hard bit. The only one being remotely communicative is Duo.

"Do you have space colonies orbiting as we speak?" The braided boy, the end of his hair in hand, makes a circling motion with it. It's clear he means around _this_ Earth. They have space ships, and satellites, but space colonies? Daniel can only shake his head.

He cringes; the other breaks his staring to blink in something like disbelief.

"Well, ah, you see – we five? We were all born _in space_, on space colonies, you see? The numbers, they sort of go along with that. I guess. I'm Duo Maxwell – and this is Trowa Barton, but we don't really – uh – _know_ what our birth names are. Records lost in space, you know? Numbers are easier." Duo's smile is charming, and his shrug makes it all seem harmless. Daniel only shakes his head; it's his turn not to believe them.

"If your world is so advanced to have space colonies, I highly doubt such things as your names could be _lost_." Anyone just having a baby in space, it's something Daniel can't see ever happening. He doesn't like it, either, the easy acceptance of their number-names, as if it's just the way it is.

"It's easier then you think." It's the first time Trowa Barton has spoken aloud, and he eyes the computer as if he knows how to do it. It sounds remarkably like a threat.

"Yah, yah, mad scientist – uh – so, the Replicators here, have they gotten a hold of the Gundams?" There is something like lust, longing, and love in Duo's word, Gundam. Trowa stirs, sitting up and paying attention – this, Daniel realizes, is important.

"What is a Gundam?" Is all Daniel Jackson can say, feeling at once clueless and helpless – and that just isn't supposed to happen to him.

"A mech out of _gundanium_ alloy…." Duo can very clearly see that Daniel has no idea what he's talking about. He groans aloud, shaking his head as if it's helpless and essential.

o.o.o.o.o

"So, we can't go home." Wufei sums it up.

"Right…." Colonel Cameron Mitchell would have rather that everyone got back to their own home worlds, but it just isn't possible for the "SG-Boys" as SG team leaders are referring to the five. It would take all the energy of a ZPM: because, Sam says, _their_ dimension is so very different from here. Mitchell doesn't know what the difference is between a different version of their reality, and a different dimension is, entirely – but it's the boy's bad luck to end up here.

"So, about that _gundanium_ alloy on PX7-455…"

Or, rather, _his_ bad luck.

o.o.o.o.o.o

"So, what do you think?" Duo Maxwell drawls down to General Jack O'Neill who has been looking, up and _up_ for so long he might be getting a crick in his neck. There had been an announcement, and a speech, and Jack had said some fine things to important people – and some reassuring ones to Stargate Command, where it mattered most. This, though, was his first real look at what the kids had been cooking up in the basement – so to speak.

There was only two so far, but there would be more. Three more, as a matter of fact – and then a series of mechs for SG teams to train with: but these? These two were for the SG-Boys, Heero Yuy (who Duo joked was molesting his Wing, and Jack didn't doubt it – he hadn't come out of the control station yet) and Duo Maxwell's Deathscythe which, to his eyes looked very much like the winged angel of Death.

"You're sure you can pilot this?" Jack asks, not doubting it, but thinking on all the things – dangerous and useful – that Duo could do. Not all of them reassuring.

"Like riding a bike, boss." Duo winks, his grin gaping like a skeleton.

Jack's is equally devious.


	51. Batman : Dear Darkest Knight

Dear Darkest Knight_  
_

_May Eve _prompt(s): Batman : Batman losing his temper. Any xover you want, or none.

*_So,_ The Dark Knight _left the Joker hanging, and the Batman on the run – well, well, who do you think the police have in_ _custody, whom claims that the Batman completes him?_*

Reruns upon rerun, it was all so _boring_.

"Where is Batman?" And that question no longer gave the Joker the giggles, which the Joker was both alarmed and disappointed by. His eyes were drawn to the scene of the Batman hitting his own head on the table.

Of the contained violence, the control: it gave the Joker the shivers. Here was darkness and danger – and it was all his to explore, to take, to manipulate. They didn't even see it (or, really, care), that by being _good_ the Batman was doing himself harm. Everyone else knew the Batman was bad, everyone - _but_ the Batman.

If only they would let him out of his cage.

"You really, _really_ want to know?" The Joker sung, and then snickered.

"Yes!" It was snarled, meaty flesh hitting the table top, sickeningly.

"Then let me go, and I guarantee – he'll come to me – to us. It's like drawing flies with honey and vinegar – he, being a criminal, doesn't _really_ want to fight crime, he's just making a very public name for himself – but me? Well he just can't resist!" The Joker had gestured between the police and himself, as if they had something in common. Indeed they did, both were criminal: one legally corrupt, one…not bound by laws. That is what the Joker wanted the Batman to be, unbound, freed.

"Who is the Batman?" The Joker wiggled forward as if to tell a secret. On the screen, he was shoved against a wall, the Batman pinning him there. Just a little, he shivered in want. The Joker wanted to see the Batman, to touch, to taunt, to tease. It was all so much…fun, bringing out the bad in Batman was what he lived for, now – and when the Batman really was bad, when the Joker had succeeded? Oh, but it would be glorious – and what fools he would make of the good people and police of Gotham.

They wouldn't even know, until it was far, far too late – that the Joker had finally made a worthy friend.

"Bruce Wayne." The Joker says, with a grim grin. He giggles, as the police rush about to bring in the prince of Gotham.

"You'll never touch him, all that wealth, that power – can you imagine? He wants more then to be a mere business man, he wants what I have to offer." This Joker warns, as he sits back and waits.

Waits for the police to bring the Batman to his knees – the Joker had meant it, being a man of his word, when he had said he'd share a cell with Batman – or not go to Arkham at all.

Sure enough, Bruce Wayne, with his pretty boy looks and his dark eyes is sitting in the Joker's cell. Within half a hour, at that - the Joker is a little bit impressed with how easy it was, to get the people to betray their protector.

"You are all making a mistake." Bruce says, eying the Joker uneasily. The Joker, with the eyes of Gotham's finest upon him, behaves: wiggling and waiting.

"Mr. Wayne, we don't think you are the Batman, but surely you must see that the Batman's tools can only be _funded_ by someone like you." Bruce sits back and looks at the ceiling, sighing.

"I'm not the wealthiest man in the world, there are richer men, and those – some worse men then me." All of which is a fact that none do dare deny. Bruce Wayne, if these men or women invaded Gotham, would be the first to know. Would have to be alright with it.

"The Joker named you." Commissioner Jim Gordon says, watching Bruce. He, unlike the Joker, doesn't know – and disbelieves.

"All of Gotham knows my name." That is very true, even those who have never heard of the Batman, or the Joker, know the name of Bruce Wayne.

"All the same, we'll wait and hold you overnight." As if that will prove anything - the Batman, unlike the police force, never kept a tight schedule….

"Do I have to…share a cell… with _him_?" Bruce Wayne is clearly disgusted, or the disdain would not drip from his words so. The Joker rubs his hands together, delighted at the show of proof, that Bruce Wayne shows feelings for him, where the Batman hides all behind his mask. Even if these feelings are not quite what he would like, they are something to work with.

"He has no weapons, and there is no safer place." Then in the heart of Gotham's temporary police headquarters: the Joker snickers, remembering an explosion from within. That will be nothing compared to what he will do next.

"Right..." Bruce Wayne says, doubtfully. They think that they do a rich man a favor, keeping him away from the riff-raff and rabble: not, yet, letting those fine long hands get dirty. Yet Bruce Wayne knows criminals in ways they never will. The Joker can't wait, and wiggles forward.

"Won't harm a hair on his head..." The Joker purrs the words, and Bruce Wayne narrows his eyes at him, a warning to keep his distance. It's the unspoken _or else_ that makes the Joker grin, reckless and wild. It's a threat that the Joker intends to direct at the proper people – all of Gotham will feel that burning fury.

The lights go out, the day police have left the building as night shift descends, and cameras are watched behind locked doors.

"You'll have to get us out." The Joker purrs and Batman's dark eyes flick to him. Batman's eyes, though out from under a mask. It's most disorienting, but delightful.

"I'll get out, come morning; you'll be staying right here." Bruce Wayne is ever aware of the red-lit camera eyes, though the Joker doesn't give a damn.

"Oh, no Bats – it doesn't work that way. I'll sing myself free – and you don't dare let me do that." The Joker, after all, is a force of his own will to master and tame. Like time, but the Batman – this boy Bruce Wayne, is an immovable object – he will always, always be there. Even if he died, his power – his wealth, another would take it up, take up the name of Batman, for good or evil.

The Joker delights in it, and giggles.

"What then do you think I will do?" The Joker straddles Bruce's waist, those thighs, and trails a finger down a chest that is quickly indrawn in surprise. Without mask or black body armor, this is as bare as it gets, as naked as the Batman can be, where Batman ends and Bruce Wayne begins, the weakness is right here: in front of him.

"Escape - I think being a hunter is much more in your nature then being hunted, then being a mere decoy of Dent's deeds. You are so much more, so much greater then him - I think it's driving you _mad_…just a little bit?" The Joker leans down to whisper those words in Bruce's ear. Batman hears him.

Joker's fingers press into that slender throat, offered up to him – to the world, for the taking – like a sacrificial victim. The Batman didn't know what he was offering playing at being hunted – how easy it is, for the hunter to become truly hunted. All for the Joker's taking, all that Batman offered – and more….for Bruce is at _his_ mercy - the Joker, of course, has no mercy – save for himself, and Batman.

"Yes." It's a growl that grumbles out of Bruce's chest, the heart of him, where Batman speaks. Bruce's eyes are bright and wide, surprised. He really shouldn't be, as the Joker did warn Batman and Bruce both – the Joker is nothing without Batman, and Batman can be Batman without the Joker, but not without Bruce.

To save Bruce – well, the Batman would save the Joker – and damn Gotham to kingdom come.

The Joker's kiss feeds the flame of madness within that Batman brings out in Bruce Wayne.


	52. Alex Rider : Playing Dead

Playing Dead

_May Eve _prompt(s): Alex and Yassen, family moment. K-Unit eavesdrops.

*_So, Yassen alive, and Alex being (he thinks) dead. For assassins and spies, what's a family moment? Both being alive, I'd think_…*

In-between the Gentlemen's screams - he tells Yassen things, babbles them like a river, pleads, and begs. All information is valuable, but not all information comes clean as blood-free facts.

Little things, the flowers for a funeral returned, with a single yarrow crowning. Yassen does not know what that means until the Gentlemen whimpers it.

"Good health." MI6 meant either for the Gentlemen _to have_ good health, or a taunt, that the target was missed. That MI6 wants the Gentlemen alive or dead, Yassen does not care. Alex Rider is supposed to be dead; the funeral is Friday, the date seared into Yassen's memory.

"Check the casket." The Gentlemen chuckles as he dies. Dying is apparently funny and he has no fear to someone who has sent so many into death's arms. It is what it means to be an assassin – he remembers that well, and as no one else will – Yassen buries the Gentlemen, though he says not a word after.

Its good advice the Gentlemen gave, the casket isn't empty – but it is not Alex in it.

When Yassen looks, he finds SAS. A team of four: the thing is, last Yassen knew, SAS trained in –and worked best as - teams of five. Like injured predators, they are loyal to their fellows, and when Yassen checks in on St. Dominic – he finds who he's been looking for.

Alex Rider is sharing a room with Paul Drevin: there are coincidences in life, but not like this.

"Lucky." Yassen tells Alex, who isn't as asleep as he pretends. Alex's eyes gleam up at him.

"I thought you were dead, Gregorovich." Alex says, shakily. The assassin shakes his head.

"The likes of you and I do not die so easily. You saw what I wanted MI6 and Scorpia to see. It was not meant for you, my apologies." To make it up to him, Yassen gives him a kiss, it's long and lingering and under hospital sheets it sends Alex's toes to curling.

He moans into it, fingers tangling in Yassen's hair.

It's then that the small hairs at the back of his neck raise and his skin tingles, Yassen knows. They are being watched, and are not alone. A quick glance confirms it, that Paul still sleeps off a sedative in his hospital food. It took the SAS team less time to find him then Yassen would like.

"Who watches you?" Yassen whispers into Alex's ears, his eyes closed - Alex replies.

"K-Unit, my SAS team – I trained with them." It explains many things.

"I'll keep you close." Yassen promises. Alex nods then watches him leave. He'll not be gone long from his boy's side. A near death experience is one thing spies may risk – but when they play at being dead, well – that is assassin's business – and Yassen does not take such risk worth it.

Yassen lets the SAS team trial him into an alley, and waits – they, after all, desire the same thing as he does. They'll need a warning to do a job well.

"Get him out of here." Taking the window up and into a four-story building is something to see, it's funny, how ridiculous and furious their faces are. SAS are not fools, and know how to follow good advice. Most especially when that advice comes from a killer who has had his eyes (and other things) on their teammate - when they pack Alex Rider up and take him away (perhaps thinking to get him away from him - the assassin), they never dream (unless in nightmare) that Yassen Gregorovich will be waiting for them.

But he is, and they'll just have to live with it.

Or not…


	53. Shelock Holmes : Watching You

Watching You

_May Eve _prompt(s): (going with the voyeur!kink) Lestrade witnesses a quiet moment  
between Sherlock and John.

*_It wasn't until I wrote this that I realized something a little bit creepy. Lestrade is usually there if there is a love scene to be interrupted between Sherlock and Watson_…*

Mycroft may keep watch over country and queen, but country and queen had great need for Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps, being brothers, Mycroft did not see this as clearly as Lestrade did. Or, more disturbing by far, Mycroft Holmes trusted Lestrade – in his own quiet way – to keep watch over Baker Street and 221B.

That, if Mycroft intended it or not (knows – or not), is exactly what Lestrade does – he keeps watch, and kept watching even when others would not have. Would have glanced away to preserve privacy, to give dignity, to save something of themselves from the harsh judgments of the world.

If the world had been watching Lestrade, it would know he had no shame. Try as Sherlock and Watson might, small reporters had their names, with names it was only a small matter of finding out their addresses – or printing their faces in newspapers. Lastrade, being who and what he was, ensured that all the papers and peers of London got were mere names, mere hints and ghosts.

Only through John's words were these two men better known then through the eyes of Lestrade.


	54. Thor : Where Were You

Where Were You

(When Ragnarök Began The Ending)

_May Eve _prompt(s): Thor weeps for all he has lost and all he loved.

*_For song-inspiration I went with "Thor" by Leslie Fish, then her "The Gods Are Not Crazy" (both can be found on YouTube) – together, they are rather sad sounding_.*

"Why do you weep?" Hel did ask him, softly from the shadows. Bringing her father Loki strongly to Thor's mind.

Thor sits on the Asgard throne, the throne of his father Odin, of his father's father, Bor.

He sits alone; the first to die was Jane Forster – her grave he had visited, she he had seen buried.

Sif, of all the warring Asgardians had not fallen in battle, but by Ragnarök her soul entombed in an old woman's body. When the body had died, her soaring soul had gone into Hel's domain.

Of Brunnhilde, Thor remembered only by sitting upon the throne of Odin. He remembered her well now, but she – she would never remember him, such was the kindness and cruelty of Odin.

Amora, The Enchantress and Lorelei he had banished, for Loki's sake.

All for not.

"Where is he – my brother, Loki?" Thor asks, for upon the throne Hlidskjalf's high seat he can not see Loki anywhere in the universe.

It hadn't done Thor – or his brother in all but blood any good, Loki going willingly with Hel least Ragnarök descend upon Thor too swiftly. This Loki had called a gift, that Thor would be king. To delay the day of the end.

It was no gift that Thor would want, for he had found that like Bor's sons Vili and Ve had died for Odin's cause, so too had Thor's own long known brothers fallen before the coming Ragnarök, a storm born of Loki's offspring - Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. They stood before him and would tear him apart.

"Lost." Hel sighs, and it is not saying Loki is dead, or alive.

It is no answer at all, and Thor weeps.


	55. TorchwoodHTTYD : Mind The Dragon

Mind The Dragon

_May Eve _prompt(s): How to Train Your Dragon/Torchwood. Hiccup and Toothless come out of the Rift and the dragon really likes Ianto.

"Teach the boy English." Jack says, as if it is to be as simple as that. At Jack's back, Ianto rolls his eyes.

Wide eyed, the boy watches them – watches _him_. His dragon is pressed close to his side, touching skin to scale hide, and cat-like green eyes are narrowed upon one and all in fury - as if all this is their fault.

Ianto sighs, and when the rest of Torchwood has gone all home to bed - he stays with a boy who knows nothing of the modern day, nothing of electricity (to say nothing of science, or aliens!), and nothing of him. And he teaches.

There are things, though, that you do not need a language to learn – or know.

Seemingly because Ianto takes the time to teach, the dragon accepts him. Only Hiccup would see otherwise.

"What's with you?" Hiccup hisses to Toothless, in his language so Ianto can not understand. Toothless, wide eyed and innocent looking, looks up at him, blinks and snuggles his head into Ianto's lap.

Hiccup looks quickly away, blushing.

He won't admit – yet – that he's jealous.

That unspoken jealously breeds a realization, that he _isn't_ jealous of Ianto for Toothless liking him – but _of Toothless_, for being aloud so easily into Ianto's personal space. That his dragon has figured it out before him, well – it isn't really all that surprising: Toothless did, after all in the end, impress Astrid more then Hiccup ever could compare with.

So he swallows his fear, gulping, and leans against Ianto as if sleepy– with Ianto in-between Hiccup and Toothless, yet he does not protest. Through half closed eyes he sees Toothless wink at him, when Ianto isn't looking, Hiccup sticks his tongue out.


	56. Live Free or Die Hard: JohnMatt Beer

Live Free or Die Hard: John McClane/Matthew "Matt" Farrell, _Beer_

Matt gets the impression that John used to drink a lot: there is no beer in the trash, no beer in the fridge. The thing is, even people who don't drink alcohol regularly usually have something, for the holidays, or just in case some old friends come over. At first Matt had thought it was because John had dumped it because Matt didn't look of age. Even when he'd told him how old he was, that doesn't change that there is no beer in sight. John does have friends, even friends out of the NYPD, there's this Argyle who tells Matt about the first –and _last_ – night he drove a limousine. He's neat, and John calls him "kid" quite fondly, and Argyle only retorts with "old man", like John's his dad or something.

He gets bits and pieces of the stories that are John's life, from his friends. Even though it took only, like, two minutes to find out everything the newspapers had on John. (The reporter, Richard Thornburg – he still has _a restraint order_ on Holly, John's ex-wife- and Matt isn't going to ask her why, or John.) It feels like it's not enough, not nearly, not enough to explain why John is the way he is, or why he doesn't drink.

Alan Powell comes by, every Christmas Eve like clock work – it's their "anniversary". Only he gets to talk about Holly with John freely, and from listening (because Matt is good at that, even if when he talks about stuff he cares about it never seems to sink in) he learns about what John went through _inside_ Nakatomi Tower. There is a lot that Argyle doesn't seem to know, and Matt gets the feeling that Al and John have it planned that way, to protect "the kid" – a man in his own right, full grown.

He also learns why John doesn't go into airports, or on planes. Still, every Christmas, the Washington Dulles International Airport sends him a card and a basket; Matt doesn't know what's in it, as John never opens them. There are a few boxes worth of stuff that John just keeps, unopened, he won't throw it away, but won't open it. Matt thinks its probably thank-you cards, and letters, maybe gifts, from survivors, from people who think John is a hero, their savior. All it does is make John remember those he couldn't save – and selfishly, among one of the ones he did save, his own wife Holly.

Then there's Zeus, not the Greek god, but a man who owns a shop in Harlem that John always stops by if they come around. The one time Matt stops in without John, he gets sort of nervous, he's not a racist, but having upwards of ten or so teenagers to guys and girls his age, just _staring_ at him, glaring at him, or laughing at him, well, it brings back high school days really keenly, and Matt in school was even less cool then Matt the hacker (who almost ended America).

The shop sells computer parts, which Matt thinks is kind of cool and he goes in to check them out without John hanging around aimlessly: Zeus, he just laughs at him, at them – or with them all - and Matt laughs right back. He knows nothing is going to happen to him, he's just some geek hero, and that's just what Zeus tells his kids. He has John's sense of humor; Zeus claps on the shoulder and tells his kids to go to school, they grumble and roll their eyes, clearly having finished middle school, high school, and college with those very words ringing in their ears every day. Matt talks to them, eventually, when two guys who went to a school that was almost bombed by Simon Peter Gruber, the brother of Hans Gruber who tried to take down Nakatomi Tower while John McClane was in it.

They tell him John and Zeus are heroes, and they tell him that no one in Harlem plays Simon says. Matt gets bold enough to ask about the beer thing, because it seems like something Zeus would know, no one else would say, he tells him that the day that he met John, he was hangover, that it nearly cost lives – that he was a borderline alcoholic, but stopped – just stopped drinking. It ruined his life with Holly and their kids, and nearly killed John – and most unforgivably to John, nearly killed the people he was supposed to help keep safe as a NYPD cop.

So John talks about beer, sometimes, but it's really only talk, to mock himself, to tease out painful memories of why: he doesn't drink or get drunk, and Matt can live with that. He wonders sometimes, what John would be like drunk, and when it comes up with Lucy, she gives him Holly's number – and Matt thinks it's the bravest thing he's done, calling her.

"Hi, um, Holly?" Matt begins, knowing he can't call her McClane, because she isn't married to John, but not knowing if she goes by Gennero**.**

"Yes? Who is this?" She's all business, and Matt fidgets and keeps his voice down even when he knows John is out.

"It's, uh, Matt, ma'am." Matt doesn't know how to talk to her, and there's this pause and he thinks, _this is stupid, she probably doesn't even know_.

"Ah, you live with John, Lucy's told me." When put like that, it makes Matt cheeks burn, here he is, living with a man and sharing his bed and on the phone with his ex-wife – who does he think he is, and why did he think this was a good idea?

"Yes, that's right ma'am, I – uh…had a question." Holly huffs at him, and Matt realizes she's laughing at him, silently, but still laughing.

"About John's drinking, yes, Lucy mentioned that you've been asking about that." Matt feels like an idiot, because with computers he's brilliant and there are few better, but with people? He always manages to be obvious, to screw something up.

"Y-yeah." Matt stutters out, and wonders if hanging up is an option. "Listen, this was stupid. I'll…I'll just go."

"Don't." Holly orders, sharp, and Matt freezes: he recognizing the tone for John's own – and he wonders if she learnt it from him, or if he learnt it from her.

"Don't leave him, Matt. My daughter, I trust her instincts, she gets them from him - John has always makes trustworthy friends – even in a crisis. I should say, he's especially good at that. It's saved his life more then once. I'm not blind; I know what you are to him. Your good for him, you are what he needs. I loved him, not the hero, but John is both, you see? I learnt that late, too late." Matt's done his research, he knows the problem with John's and Holly's marriage began before Nakatomi Tower.

"Lucy was young, but it wasn't being a cop that drove John to drink, it was his drive to be both the man I loved and the hero who he is. I asked him, every day, to come back alive. Loving a cop is hard, loving a hero is…well, it wasn't in me. It might have changed things, if I hadn't asked that of him. He saw a lot of death, and it tore into him, that he couldn't just recklessly charge in, to help, to save people. He drank the pain away and the pain in him, it was more then the love I had in me – but not more then the love he had, you see?" Matt feels still and calm inside, and he realizes that hearing that had eased something in him, something that had itched and worried at him. Holly seemed to like him enough to tell him this, but not enough to want John back and ruin what they had. Matt feared that if Holly ever wanted John back, she would have him. Matt wasn't anyone's replacement, and John had never said he would be – but Matt, well, he had trust issues.

"Thank you." He says, full of that feeling.

"Take care of yourself, and you'll take care of him." Is her final advice, a good-bye all her own (for she doesn't say good-bye, just like John doesn't). Then there is the ring-tone, and Matt hangs up, his research done. John is his to keep.

(_I signed up for this "fic tac toe" - (it was due Oct. 22 2011) at **sexy_right**, a challenge community for Die Hard fans._  
_I'm just now getting around to writing and posting them. Well, better late then never? I guess._ )


	57. Sherlock&TBBT: Theory Of Relativity

**Theory Of Relativity **

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, or The Big Bang Theory (damn!), but if I did there would be this.

O.o.O.o.O.o.

The oddest day of Leonard's life starts with a ordinary knock on the door.

"Leonard door!" Sheldon calls while he works - not looking up and perhaps not realizing that Leonard is in the room already, but he can't be bothered to get up and answer the door which isn't ten feet from him. Leonard, with a roll of his eyes, answers it.

"Hullo." There are two men at the door, one tall, dark and wearing a black coat, the other shorter, blond and sturdy with a sweater on. He looks a little friendlily, and is at least smiling - so Leonard smiles back.

"Can I help you?" Leonard asks, a little worriedly.

"Yeah, uh, hi - we're looking for a Dr. Sheldon Cooper?" The blond man asks, by his accent he's from England. Leonard was curios, worried, and now is a bit alarmed. What would someone from so far away want with Sheldon?

"He lives here." The taller and darker of the two strangers states like it's a fact of life. He doesn't look happy about it, either.

"Go away." Sheldon demands, just out of sight beyond the door. Leonard feels, suddenly, as if he's being used as a shield, and Sheldon is hiding from these two.

"Shelly." The tall and dark one almost sing-songs. The blond's eyes are wide and he looks a little startled at his friend.

"Sherlock..." He says, almost questioningly.

"Who are you?" Leonard asks, deciding to worry about one thing at a time.

"I'm Dr. John Watson - he's Sherlock Holmes." The blond answers, quickly, as if glad for the bit of normalcy.

"Dr. Leonard Hofstadter." He replies, because apparently they know of Sheldon already.

"Yes, yes, physicist, geek, comic books - video games, and yet you want to be social? You've strange tastes in roommates. Now do get out of the way." It's very hard, but Leonard stands his ground, thinking of all the times he's been bullied and beaten, and now Sherlock looms over him and he won't move - Leonard draws the line at being intimidated in his own home.

"Go away." Sheldon demands, again, Leonard looks back and sees that he's sitting in his Spot, knees drawn up under his chin and looking at the doorway with a sort of dread.

"Meemaw sent me." Sherlock smirks at Sheldon over Leonard's head, and it's as if he doesn't even notice Leonard.

"How do you know Sheldon's grandmother?" Leonard asks, taken aback, and Sherlock is quick to focus on him. That focus unnerves Leonard to the point of chills that run down his spine and goosebumps along his skin. That stare is very creepy, eerily like being a microorganism and having a microscope shoved in your face.

"She's my grandmother as well. Sheldon, I've come to collect you." There is something like victory shining in those gleaming grey eyes. He won't take no for a answer, Leonard is sure.

"You can't make me go with you, Sherly. Leonard, don't let him take me." Leonard wonders how, exactly, he's supposed to stop them - he doesn't say it, of course, but hopes standing in the way will be enough to deter them. Sherlock's look to him seems almost approving.

"Take you where?" Leonard asks, and it's John Watson: looking back and forth between Sherlock and Sheldon, that actually answers.

"A family reunion." John is plainly confused, while Leonard is rather amused that a family reunion could cause such fuss. Then again this is Sheldon's family...

"Well, shouldn't Mary have picked him up, or Missy?" Leonard has never met Sheldon's elder brother, George Cooper Jr. but Sheldon's assured him - once - that he is alive. Then he'd said something about the FBI.

"Maryweld and Millicent have already been contacted and collected." Put that way, it doesn't really sound like a friendly family gathering. Leonard only blinks blankly at the names, thinking a moment on the names Mary and Missy, and that it makes sense, the shorting, as it's clearly done with Sheldon's own name as Shelly.

"George involved, didn't he?" Sheldon looks suspicious, and not a little paranoid.

"Of course Mycroft and he planned it, what did you except?" Sheldon glances to the window, and fidgets, as if he's thinking about jumping. Leonard, not a little alarmed, steps back from the door to head to the window, blocking that way - just in case. He'd rather Sheldon left by a the door with his...cousin, even if he is being kidnapped (can you be kidnapped by your family?).

"I don't go to family reunions, Sherly. I won't." Sherlock sighs, long suffering, and steps into the apartment.

"You will, Shelly, because it's Meemaw, and she is expecting you - and my case won't be finished until I deceiver you." Sherlock says case like Sheldon says "physics", with intent interest. He shrugs, as if it is going to be a closed case, even if neither of them like it - because that's just how Sherlock works.

Sheldon's face falls, reading that determination.

"Where is this family reunion?" Leonard doesn't know if he wants to know to just check if it's real, or to avoid it at all costs in the future.

"I don't know yet, I need Sheldon to work out the geology with me." Sherlock freely admits this lack of knowledge, but Sheldon's lip curls.

"For you, you mean. If you had only become a real scientist instead of a made-up career like a consulting detective, you wouldn't need me for...cases." Sherlock's lips quirk.

"Then where would our brothers be?" Muses the elder cousin, putting a piece of folded paper with a scrawled formula beside Sheldon's Spot.

With a jerky movement, Sheldon takes it, sneers and says "Texas" like a curse.

"Meemaw is waiting, come along cousin dear." Startlingly, Sheldon does as asked by Sherlock, if looking smug in his stride. Leonard sees it, even if Sheldon does, that Sherlock's almost-smile is protective and proud. John and he trade a look, and Leonard decides that his curiosity is likely to get him killed, cat or no cat-like features, as he follows Sheldon out pausing only to grab his key to 4A.

(I hope this is okay, I've never written for either Sherlock or Big Bang Theory. Written in response for this request "Sherlock/Big Bang Theory crossover please. I don't care how, I don't care why. I just want Sheldon and Sherlock in the same room." by Anon at Sherlock BBC Kink Meme)O


	58. Thor: Long Live The Queen

**Long Live The Queen**

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Disclaimer: I do not own Thor. 

_Note_: in answer to the LJ norsekink prompt "Jane marries Thor and is granted immortality. Unfortunately our frail mortal minds can't cope with eternity..." (I was toying with another title "The Sanity of the Insane".)

O.o.O.o.O.o

Frigga sits in her stately garden, and Jane sits at her feet, humming and plucking at plants; weeds and flowers alike. Jane has seen these grow from seeds and die each and every winter, and now she takes them from the soil without fretting, it's the natural cycle of life and death, from which Jane is far removed. Soil will never bury her, she will burn out, like the stars - she feels as if she should, right now, this moment - and it's a urge that startles her heart to beating too swiftly. She does nothing but sit, and is still, but is frightened, wanting and waiting for a blow - a mortal blow (a joke?), but there is nothing, only the passing of time, on and on, moments, minutes, where her body is healthy and whole and yet she does not trust it.

"Mother..." Jane murmurs, eyes flicking over the garden searching for the hem of Frigga's dress. There is something like panic in her urgent glance. Frigga offers her hand, and Jane takes it, her smile beautiful and childlike.

"Yes, child?" Frigga asks of her, prompting a frown. Jane can not recall why she sought this contact, why she is here at all, or whom this woman is who is not her mother, but who calls her child and daughter and is kind and generous. She is never impatient, even as Jane is with herself.

"Where is he?" There are many men, many that are male, but there is only one he for she, for Jane there is Thor, for Frigga there is Odin. It is less like love and more a partnering of equals, of halves joined and whole. Jane will never be whole, but she will always have Thor, they were married and immortal.

"Come, he would see you." Frigga knows these things, and Jane does not know how - has never known how. Only that she does see, and see so well she need never prophesy.

They walk together, hand in hand, their steps echoing and echoed by the halls and the shadows of bold and bloodied warriors. Jane used to think them fearsome and intimidating, now she thinks nothing of them but as so much and many shadows. Sometimes she sees the gleam of metal, and thinks of sharpness and steel and bleeding red. It has been a long time since Jane saw her own blood, her mortal fertility was one more thing long lost. Jane had wept for it, once, long ago.

This does not mean that Jane is not a mother, for her Sif had born the seed of Thor and the throne.

She blinks back the dampness of her eyes, and sees her husband. He sits enthroned, as once Odin was, with his warriors three and the Lady Sif. He is not the first to see her.

"Sister." Sif greets her with a soft smile, and open hands, Jane hugs her, armor and all.

Loki has seen her, and looks away, his eyes angry. Sigyn puts her hands upon him, and he is still and silent, and his silence is perhaps the most awful thing of all. He used to speak his mind, he used to string words together like singing, although once she told him that, and he had called it lying.

Frigga stands beside Jane, and Sif at her other side, she feels free and grounded all at once as she sits where Sif leads. Jane is the only one in all Asgard that Sif calls sister, so Thor looks upon her, seated upon the throne beside his own. He is distant and dreadful like a storm, but pleasing to look upon, all power and golden light; she lays her head upon his shoulder and he is warm.

"Love, is all well?" Thor's voice rumbles the bones, but Jane keeps her eyes closed as she smiles.

"Nevermore." She murmurs, though they all hear. It is a truthful and terrible thing. She would have it no other way, and is helpless to change it. There was no giving back a gift.

She remembers Hel, the Lady, like a shadow during the dawn. Loki's daughter, whom Loki himself had brought up from the depths of Helheim, she had been shrouded in shadows, her garment merely skin and spider-silk. She had flaunted her flesh, both the whole half and the marred ruin of the rest, both were like beauty upon her, to mark of her as mistress of what all Asgard feared: death in by any way but battle.

Hel's white hand upon Loki's arm, her fingers glistening with a red like blood: only Loki had willingly touched her, smiled upon her, and stood proudly by her. She was her father's daughter, a queen whom even Odin had had to take heed of when she had spoken in protest of the mockery of making a mortal merely immortal.

She had already eaten the golden apples of Idunn, and never would she age a day so long as she ate of them, but it was not the same as the immortality which Thor wished to gift her with.

"Uncle." Hel had greeted him, lashes over her eyes a grey so light as to be silver. Jane had wondered if the golden light of Agard hurt her.

"My father has fetched me, but he would not say why." Jane had marveled once, at the sheer trust that showed in Loki, whom Jane had once thought unworthy of it.

"Lady Hel, I ask a boon of you, upon my wedding day." Hel's head had tilted, she had been very still and silent as she listened. Loki had nodded his head, urging Thor to ask now or keep her at peace.

"Immortality for my mortal wife." Hel had hissed, as if struck. Loki held her steady and would have had the life-blood of any who had dared do so upon the hall floor before they would have hit her. Even so, uneasily, Loki had turned his eyes aside.

"Is this your will and wish, Lady Jane?" Hel asked instead, at a whisper. Jane had swallowed to meet her eyes, she was shadow and light, one day Baldr would dine beside her with his wife, one day Hoder would call her his companion; the one day among so many that Jane can not tell if they have passed or not.

"It is." Jane felt now a fool, and Hel had closed her eyes. She, like Loki, was uneasy were ill at ease.

"It is done, as asked of me. I grant this gesture." Jane evermore, nevermore, wondered why.

"Tha-.." Jane had begun to say, but Hel had opened her eyes and the silver in them had gleamed like a flash of the knife.

"Do not thank me for this, this is a cruel deed, a cursed thing that you think to welcome willingly." Jane had closed her mouth, and bowed her head, and wondered why Hel had done as she'd been asked at all.

Hel had swiftly taken leave of them, and Loki had for a time gone away too, for Fenrir was free of the noose Gleipnir, and Jormungand had come out of the sea. They had no place in Asgard, but Hel had taken them in willingly and with welcome.

Jane knew that never would Hel take her. She was no monster, she was not even a mortal, although Jane wondered if a mortal who was immortal could be worse then a monster in the eyes of Loki and his daughter. Loki would have left with them, journeying into Helheim perhaps never to return, had not Sigyn married him to Asgard, with the birth of the boys Vali and Narfi. Jane knew it to be done by Thor's asking, perhaps the greatest trick upon the trickster ever known, and Loki knew it well.

Frigga came again, and Sif smiled to see them, children born for the throne, the blood of Thor. His daughter Thrud, and his son the boy Loridi. There too were Magni and Modi flanking their siblings, sons of Thor by Jarnsaxa, they were born to wield Mjöllnir. All four were fine, Jane well knew but they were not her own.

"Which shall rule?" She asks of Thor; who looks to Loki, who laughs.

"We will see, won't we?" Loki smiles at Jane and she wonders how much madness is in mortality, and how much in mischief. If it is not equal out after all. With a nod she agrees. After all; the end of all things will bring about the end of she - and perhaps there is no end, or beginning, and only this unto eternity.

"Long live me." She mocks, for she is queen, and Thor is king. Thor holds her hand until she sleeps, sending all others away. .


	59. Thor: No Bond Of Blood

**No Bond Of Blood **

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Disclaimer: I do not own Thor.

_Note_:** A fill for:**

"So, I've had this bumbling about in my head for a while now, and I don't think it's something that's been posted (at least not something I've seen).

Loki is a changeling. But not a Jotun changeling that looks Asir, he's a bonified from the underhill, we took your baby and left ours because we didn't want to deal with all the screaming or the crap teenage years, Fey changeling.

Think about it. The magic, the looks, the technically telling the truth or obeying the letter of an agreement lying. It's a perfect fit.

+ 1000 - an encounter with cold iron  
+ 1000 times infinity - it's discovered while dealing with other fey and the only way to get out is to fight fire with fire (and damn, Loki doesn't look half bad up next to some of these guys)"  


O.o.O.o.O.

Loki knows he is strange, but it not until he touches the skin of the Jotun and feels his own skin slip away like a dream that he realizes in what way. What he could be. He could have very easily taken that shape, that skin, and...and...how far is he from the same-kind as his father, his mother, his brother. His shape isn't his own. He doesn't know what it was, what he looks like stripped of all guises. Not even what he is underneath.

So it begins, the discovering, he tries the dwarf shape - and it feels rough and wrong, he tries any number of things from animals to beings and beasts. He gets lost in all the shapes he can take, all the shapes that are his to play with.

He becomes a mare and gives birth to a eight-legged horse with a mind as sharp as his own, whom like he can slip from world and realm as he pleases. Loki is pleased when the colt chose his name as Sleipnir, and stands by Loki in Asgard as a steed. He is the only horse who chooses his own rider, and no rider he does not want can catch him. Odin he likes for the same reason as Loki, for his mind and wit and sly tongue. Loki learns from the best of Asir his art.

"Brother, I worry." Thor tells to him, as Loki sits in the stables and Sleipnir snorts.

"For what cause?" He asks in turn, for Loki has been so very careful to keep himself to himself, to not loose his mind as well as his shape. Perhaps it is the distance that Loki keeps from Thor, a distance that he does not dwell upon, but that Thor would.

"All the shapes you take to, as a fish to water, I fear to hunt, least you be the hare or hart." Loki can not help the quirk of his lips.

"I'd rather worry for the fish." Loki has been a fish, and enjoyed the swim, until Ran had caught him up in her nets and let him go once he had been bound in brotherhood to her.

"Brother, be serious." Thor, for once, does not jest, but pleads. It is disturbing, so Loki agrees if only to make it cease.

"Very well, I promise you I'll not make another Sleipnir: he is after all - the best, and there can only be one of him." His son licks his hair, causing it to curl up, in a way most dignifying. This time Thor does laugh, booming as loud as thunder, and Loki smiles to hear him.

Loki has never liked to handle sword or axe, the nearness of iron causes him to feel queasy. He prefers magic by tongue, by touch and deed, one might dodge a well aimed blow, and that effort be wasted - but a spell is not hit or missed. It is sure to do something, even if it was not the original intent behind the casters cause.

So Loki finds that if he can not wield a weapon, he must have power over magic, it's illusions, spells and rituals. The art of magic fascinates him. As changing his shape does, it feels right, it feels like a part of nature - his nature he is still seeking the source of. Magic he can not master, he must be a mistress, for magic is the woman's art.

In the guise of a female giant, as Thokk, he goes into Járnvid, the Ironwood, where trolls dwell. They name for what they fear, and what they would rid the world of. It is later that Loki learns - and laughs - that the meaning of a troll is so very confused upon Midgard, for trolls are fey, a breed apart for the art at natures heart.

They are much like giants, so much so that a troll might have a giant child or the chance of a wolf.

It is by Angrboda that Thokk learns the arts, and casts aside the guise and lays with her at dawn, at twilight and at night and so Loki's children Fenrir (whose own sons Hati and Skalli do hunt Sol and Mani to death) and Jörmungandr who will see twilight of the gods, and Hel who rules the dead hidden in Helheim come to be.

These three Loki brings back with him to Asgard, as proof of his identity, that he is fey born. Loki, most of all, does this in demanding truth to the blood he has. Loki will not outright say his family has lied to him all his life, he wants them to know he knows the truth of it. He wants it unhidden.

Odin does no agree, and works against Loki so swiftly that Loki is left with no children of his blood before his three are but half-grown.

"Why do you do this, brother?" Thor begs of him, when Loki has shut himself away in his chambers and he must holler through the wood which stands solid and solitary.

"Ask the Allfather." Loki hisses and it is like a loathing in his heart he has never known. This hurt, the loss of his children, the loss of his identity. It is all slipping away, like his own skin, a fear festers in his heart, that he is wrong and it was a trick all along that Angrboda plotted.

His pain is felt and heeded by the fey, the trolls of Járnvid stir to fetch him his freedom. Loki does not know this, and suffers his sorrow alone.

It is then, at his weakest and worst that Gullveig comes to Asgard upon smiling steps. She brings kind words from the Vanir, and gifts of gold, and greed. It is greed that Gullveig teaches best in the end, and Loki her apt and willing pupil. If he can not have truth, he will have power to right that wrong or gain it.

Odin is not blind, and see the where the wrongs come from, but Gullveig is their guest and of the Vanir whom are kin to the Aesir of Asgard, where the Aesir know the ways of war, the Vanir know are wise to the ways of nature being taught it be Nerthus.

So the choices of Odin is the sin of guest-slaying or to see Asgard ruined from within. It is no choice at all, he spears her thrice, and thrice she dies burning and yet lives. Loki weeps, for she suffers for helping him as the trolls had sought her and he sends for his daughter, who heeds. He knows Gullveig for the art völva.

Hel comes to Asgard as swiftly as three footed Helhesten would carry her, feeling the ill-will; to welcome her into Helheim, for peace where she would do as she willed in rest, in honor of her host, Loki's daughter, Gullveig is called Heid ever after. Odin would seek her for her knowledge, this she vowed, and this Odin would rue.

The Vanir are swift to war, hearing of how Gullveig had fallen, for they take after nature's wrathful ways. Odin wars with Asgard's warriors as long and as if in a fury, and it is for nothing.

It ends when Loki finds he bleeds as the Vanir do, and the Vanir cry for no more blood, but for the blood to be bred. What is bred from word and spit is Kvasir, whose words all heed and whose blood would become mead.

Guests are sent both ways, whose blood is deemed most noble of the breed of Vanir and Aesir: Njörd of the sea, Freyr lord of the light and ruler of Alfheim, and Freyja who loves as her heart heeds. Then go Hönir and Mimir to Vanaheim, home of the Vanir.

The trade costs Mimir his head, which Odin keeps as long as it yet speaks.

Thor is ever at Loki's side, as a brother of the heart rather then blood, least the Vanir take back what they gave, for that would greatly please the pair Freyr and Freyja whom Loki fears he is offspring of.


	60. Thor: Love Of Loki

**Love Of Loki**

_Abby Ebon_

O.o.O.o.O.o.O

Disclaimer: I do not own Thor.

_Note_:** THOR/LOKI** love another norsekink fill for this prompt:  
"This is inspired from another prompt/fill way back in the rounds. So let's say The Avengers actually takes place during the time that DADT was still in effect, and SHIELD fell under the umbrella of it.

One day, during some sort of live interview, based on some sort of question, Thor ends up earnestly telling the world of the passionate, erotic and deeply emotional relationship he had with one of his fellow male Aesir. (Thor/any male)

Well…fuck.

Bonus: It was Loki, because then you have incest thrown in as well. "

O.o.O.o.O.

"Thor, what relationship do you think has most defined you?" Darcy thinks Thor looks gorgeous on screen, all golden charm and dreamy muscles. He's downright gorgeous.

"What are you watching?" Jane asks coming in to claim a seat on the couch.

"He's giving a interview, on live TV, sort of good PR for SHIELD." Darcy understands the reasons why they need it, better then most - superheros, saving lives or not, often cause more property damage then would have otherwise occurred. So this is sort of like tossing a bone to the horde and hoping for a media sensation to take the sting away from the knives and pitchforks of the masses.

"They need it." Jane agrees, she's never been pleased with SHIELD, and that hadn't stopped because she started working with them to get Thor. The two aims are vastly different, SHIELD wanted, well, a shield, but the got of thunder - though he had the body of a brute and stuck up like a sore thumb among the throng of unwashed humanity that pretended civility - well, basically the body was a guise, a beautiful guise that held also a head that had the secrets of life, the universe, and basically everything Jane wanted in answers to questions of life.

It isn't that Jane and Thor are in love, it's just the two are like old world meeting new, they were quick friends, fascinated by each other and the differences between their societies (okay, that last bit was Darcy's reasoning).

Thor had Jane's information, brilliant, dazzling ideas that the world just isn't ready for (no matter how much it pretends).

Darcy has never been so afraid of the sky and it all falling down then on the day Thor broke the Bifröst. The storm of thunder had rolled over and it had rained like the gods were crying. Jane had thought Thor dead, but Darcy hadn't let her give up in finding out, finding him. (And getting him back, because Jane needed someone not-stupid so she would stay sane and let Darcy alone.)

SHIELD had seen that affection between them and made out of it what it wasn't - love between a mortal woman and a god; it was the wrong conclusion, but hey, hundreds of little myths couldn't be all right. Try telling that to SHIELD and the mostly-male military and you got Fury's snake eyes. He clearly didn't believe it either, but whatever the media might swallow was good enough.

"I have lived a long life, and as humans are, I was raised by my parents and beside my siblings." Darcy and Jane share a glance, it was the first time Thor had mentioned any sibling apart from Loki, and they had to wonder who out of mythology it might be.

"Who do you most miss?" Thor becomes quiet and still as the threatening storm.

"My brother Loki at my back, instead of seeking to put a dagger in it." It is obvious to all that Thor means it, that the missing of his brother hurts him like missing a limb.

"How could you trust him, hasn't he lied to you before? Won't he again? What if what you felt for him all along was a lie he wanted to believe?" Thor's grip on the handle of Mjöllnir is white knuckled. Thor, in response to the interviewer's question, raises a brow, as if it should be obvious.

"A liar, to learn to lie, must be lied to. All his life my brother Loki was told a lie by the Allfather, that he was born of the blood of Frigga. A lie he lived and breathed, that broke his heart from his mind, his trust in all Asgard fell like grains of sand. He did not fail us, we failed he. He is the brother of my heart and soul, who knows my body as I his, a lover, and I will not see him lost to me. I fight to save him, to see him safe in my arms, to reach him with love and forge our bonds anew, for the two, battle and lust, are tied deep as blood between his breed and mine." Thor's soft voice rumbled like distant thunder, causing blood and bone to quake and shiver. Intimate.

The two on the couch knew then, this was a message from Thor to Loki, here I am brother, come and get me. It was a chase, a courting, was all this had ever been.

There was utter silence, the reporter not daring to breath least it all become believe and reality.

Then green smoke filled the TV screen; like a storm with glints of silver and gold light, something like a pleased moan, a groan - and Jane laughed as the channel flicked to white noise then blackness.o


	61. Dresden&Constantine: Wondrous Strange

**Wondrous Strange **

**Aillil**:

-Constantine x Harry Dresden -  
Prompt: John and Harry, unlikely partners on a case. They meet up a few times in each other's usual hide outs.

0o0o0

"_O day and night, but this is wondrous strange_!"- Horatio

"_And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.  
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,  
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy._" – Hamlet, Shakespeare

0o0o0

It's very rare, but it does happen; people born with the eyes to see what isn't meant to be seen, with abilities no one can explain with what is _commonly_ known. More often than not, if you have something about yourself, you get it the ordinary way - from your parents, just like the color of your hair. That something _special _though is passed down by blood, parent to child, and so on and so forth…sometimes though, just _sometimes_, it wasn't a case of an affair or being an adopted orphan.

Sometimes, this shit just happens.

Such was the case of John Constantine, who _knew_ there were demons led by the likes of Lucifer, and an angel like Gabriel –there was a Hell, so there had to be a Heaven and a God too. All of it was more or less true…but than there was _this_, there were things that John ran across occasionally that didn't appear in any scripture of the Bible, that no man or woman of the cross would take to be any kind of truth.

John saw it, and so when he hears about a wizard advertising by newspaper ads in Chicago– _bingo_, he decides to pay him a visit; to see if there is any truth to that claim, and because he's as _curious_ as a cat with nine lives to be spent. John uses what connections he's got, and when he asks at Papa _Midnite's place – he gets the name of what he thinks is a place, _Mac McAnally.

It turns out to be the name of the _owner_ – not the name of the place (which isMcAnally's Pub), and John wonders if all 'neutral' pubs and bars and whatnot have a communication network. The theme of this pub is thirteen: stools at the bar, tables in the room, windows, mirrors, and wooden carved columns. The colors are sea green and earthy brown, and the ceiling and the fans hang low. Clearly a place prejudiced against being tall.

John's uneasy because thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number.

"Something I can do for you?" The man behind the bar drawls, eyeing him with mild curiosity.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I'm looking for one of your regulars, a Harry Dresden?" John Constantine asks, while looking at what pub patrons are there. Mac McAnally is grilling something up that smells good. John knows this isn't a wild place, not what Midnite's is – that grill Mac is using takes skill (John knows, as he can't grill or cook worth shit, it's why he eats out) and it smells more than half decent.

"The wizard – why…?" Mac eyes him anew, carefully.

"He's got information I need, I think." John hates admitting it, but he isn't about to lie upon meeting a man face to face for the first time.

"Sometimes it's better not to know. Dresden will be by anytime now, tall man, he wares a trench coat, fancies himself more of a detective than a wizard. But there isn't much difference between the two to me..." It isn't until later that John learns just how rare it is for Mac to speak up, he's normally a silent man, and something about his wisdom let's John know it's better not to press him. There is something to be wary about in Mac.

John heeds that feeling, and walks carefully and quietly to one of thirteen tables – the one that lets him see both Mac and the door that looks to be the only entrance or exit patrons are supposed to use; in a place like this, John can only hope his 'stick' is big enough to beat off what comes at him here.

Nothing does come leaping out of the shadows, what does come through the door is Harry Dresden.

"He's looking for you, Harry." Mac states, washing a glass as if he hasn't a care in the world – and hasn't been eyeing John since he sat down with something close to suspicion.

Harry glances up at Mac in a surprised sort of way, and looks to John – who nods. It's evidently taken to be permission to approach, because Harry does so, and sits as if it's to be granted.

"Well, hello, who are you?" John looks this so-called wizard over, and can't help smiling. He's the scruffy sort of underdog, and John can't help liking him a little bit.

"John Constantine." Is the answer, of course, and he pulls out a cigarette and smokes, breathing it in deeply.

"Well, that explains everything." Harry doesn't look too impressed with John's habits, and his nose curls up at the smell. Not a smoker, and that's something to know – but not good, and not bad.

"It does, does it?" John Constantine asks, because he wants to know how much Harry knows – or doesn't.

"Not really, no, only that you ought to know those things will kill you. Why are you looking for me here?" Harry looks toward Mac in a way that is more protective than it ought to be. John realizes he's made a mistake, he thought that this was neutral territory and it's becoming clearer that it isn't. The wizard's advertised office would probably be more neutral than this place, at least where it concerns Harry.

"Neutral ground, so to speak. I see though that I've made a mistake, my bad." Harry frowns at him, tilting his head as if studying John is easier that way. Whatever he sees, he smiles at.

He is both just what John Constantine was looking for, and nothing like what he expected – Harry is a wizard and a wise ass, and John's scathing wit is something Harry is _pleased_ and _amused_ by. John wishes that all his meetings with the strange went as simply and easily as this.

"It's alright, I like to keep pleasure and business apart, but I'm not very good at it. What can I do for you, John Constantine?" Harry fiddles with his bracelet, and John looks at it, oval disks surround his wrist, and there is something defensive about them, protective.

There is one thing that John has wondered all his life about, and he takes another deep breath, bracing – and asks, because he can't hold it in anymore. It'll kill him sooner than smoking, he knows.

"What am I?" Harry Dresden doesn't look like he gets that kind of question everyday; he narrows his eyes at John, as if expecting a trick.

"I know this is real, Harry – I know about demons, and angels, and magic…but, I don't know _why_ I know what I know, I don't know what I am – what sort of monster, or…or madness, or magic I'm a part of." John has always thought he was human, hoped, really. Yet there had always been that maybe of doubt niggling at the back of his mind. That question had always weighed on him, casting his life in shadow.

"You really don't know?" Harry Dresden muses, looking John over and his expression clears of suspicion as if seeing the sun creeping out from behind a stormy sky. John envies him that, is jealous of it – wishes he could have it too.

"No, I don't." His words are sharp and bitter, and Harry smiles – it's strange, to see a smile in face of John's doubts and pain and worry.

"I do know. Knew it once I walked in. You, John Constantine are like me – a wizard." John's heard it called a lot of things, the sight, a psychic, a prophet – but no one has really had an answer that he fits - until now. John can't help but laugh with relief. If it's tinged with hysteria neither Harry nor Mac ever mentions it.

"Tell me…everything." John asks, because for the first time in his life, he has a rare living wizard in front of him; and he's not going to waste this chance.

Harry Dresden doesn't disappoint him.


End file.
